Antelope Valley, California officials are hoping to leverage California’s historic recent round of broadband grant programs to deliver affordable fiber access to a significant swath of long-underserved southern California desert communities.
According to Antelope Valley officials, they’ve applied for a $24.3 million California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) Broadband Infrastructure grant to help them deliver symmetrical 10 Gigabit Passive Optical Network (XGS-PON) technology to 988 total households, most of which would be seeing affordable fiber access for the first time ever.
A breakdown of the project included in the application submitted by the Antelope Valley Union High School District to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), indicates that the proposed project seeks to connect to the California State Middle Mile route at two points currently being negotiated in collaboration with state Middle Mile Authorities.
“The award will not be determined until approximately quarter two of next year,” Antelope Valley Union High School District Superintendent Greg Nehen tells ILSR.
The Antelope Valley Broadband Project would be constructed with 100 percent underground fiber installation, with all fiber-optic cables placed in buried conduit within public rights-of-way, using underground microducts, handholes, and splice enclosures. No aerial deployment is planned for this project, according to project leaders.
“All proposed service locations within the project area are residential with the exception of one critical public safety location: the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, where the broadband hub will be located adjacent to the Multi-Agency Regional Resilience Center (MARRC), a major emergency operations and community resilience facility currently under development,” the application states.
According to Valley officials, 773 of the 988 targeted unserved locations in western Los Angeles County are deemed Priority Eligible under CASF criteria, “underscoring the critical need for targeted public investment in this region.”
The $2 billion in CASF funding Antelope Valley is applying for was made possible by a broader $6 billion broadband improvement project announced by California leaders back in 2021.
In addition to $2 billion for CASF funding, the state’s Broadband For All initiative also included $4 billion for a statewide middle-mile, open access fiber network to connect Census Designated Places (CDP) which lack access to broadband service capable of providing 100 Megabit per second (Mbps) downstream.
The Valley is looking to take advantage of both. Officials are hoping for grant approval somewhere between March and July of 2026, with construction beginning in February of 2027. Pending CPUC approval, they’re hopeful that the first customers will come online in early 2028, with the project being completed later that same year.
“The Antelope Valley Broadband Project represents a transformative opportunity to bridge deep-rooted digital disparities in one of California’s most persistently underserved regions,” officials state.
“Through a locally led, community-anchored, and equity-focused model, the project will deliver high-speed internet access and a durable foundation for economic inclusion, distance learning, telehealth, and regional resilience in the Antelope Valley.”
Inline map courtesy of project application
