Last fall we wrote about the launch of Project OVERCOME, a grant program "designed to connect the unconnected through novel broadband technology solutions" by soliciting applications from community-based organizations and ultimately award $2.7 million funded through the National Science Foundation and Schmidt Futures (the philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt).
Project OVERCOME seeks to "[C]ollect data to measure the technical and social impacts of different connectivity strategies [in order to] discover patterns of success that can be repeated on a larger scale across the country, and to catalog the distinctions that emerge based on variations in the communities served."
Each of the winning projects will serve as an incubator of sorts, deploying proofs of concept with an array of wired and wireless technologies to connect households in
Winning applications were recently announced for projects in Blue River, Oregon; Detroit, Michigan; Buffalo, New York; Yonkers, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Clinton County, Missouri; and Loiza, Puerto Rico.
There's no word on the total number of households the winning bids expect to connect, but they range from apartment buildings to underserved neighborhoods to rural portions of counties. To get robust, resilient connections the bulk of the projects feature fiber backhaul feeding some sort of wireless deployment (including CBRS, millimeter-wave, and RF over Fiber (RFoF)). They also feature an array of partnerships with universities, libraries, nonprofits, and electric cooperatives, including DigitalC, Onward Eugene...