Broadband stimulus brings WiMAX to rural U.S.

Broadband fans living in some rural areas of the country won't have to wait for Clearwire, Verizon or AT&T to deploy 4G services in their areas.

That's because the U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded broadband stimulus grants of more than $500 million to 40 companies to deploy WiMAX services in 22 states. The grants, recently awarded by the Rural Utility Service Fund's second round of grants, will go toward building high-speed networks in areas that so far have had to rely on dial-up connections to log onto the Web.

Two prominent companies to win major grants include EcliptixNet Broadband, a rural-focused ISP in Washington state, and DigitalBridge Communications, an ISP in Virginia that delivers wireless Internet services to Virginia, Mississippi, Indiana, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. EcliptixNet received the larger grant, getting a total of $20.4 million to build out a mobile WiMAX network in rural Washington that will cover 46,000 rural homes, while DigitalBridge has received $7.5 million in grants to build out WiMAX networks in Idaho, Indiana and Mississippi.

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