QuickTake:

A federal grant will bring more broadband access to rural Lane County by the end of 2026.

Expanded broadband access is due next year in parts of rural Lane County, helping hundreds of households that struggle to access high-speed internet service for data-heavy tasks like medical appointments, video conferences and running businesses. 

The Oregon Broadband Office awarded an $8.5 million grant that will provide broadband access to rural parts of Lane and Douglas counties. Douglas Fast Net (DFN), a subsidiary of Douglas Electric Cooperative, is installing the service in both counties through the grant. The Lane Council of Governments supported the application.

The project will provide high-speed internet access to nearly 2,000 homes in both counties, primarily Lane County. In all, the project will add broadband service to 11 areas, seven of them in Lane County. Most of the households in those areas have limited or no broadband service. 

The regions include south of Eugene to the east and west of Creswell, and northeast of Eugene in the Marcola area, reaching to the Linn County border, according to the project map. Without broadband, those rural areas can have slower connections and, in turn, people wait longer to download pages and may experience slower service while they try to watch videos or participate in Zoom calls.

Work will remain. When the project is finished, about 9,000 households in Lane County will still lack access to broadband service. That shortage of service options reflects the high cost of providing broadband to smaller populations.

“Rural America in a lot of ways has been left behind in this market because private ISPs (internet service providers) aren’t incentivized,” said Keith Testerman, a data center and systems manager at the Lane Council of Governments.  

The work has already started and should be substantially complete by the end of September 2026, Douglas Fast Net CEO Todd Way said, including engineering and installation of equipment. Under the terms of the grant, all areas improved by the grant must be operational by December 2026.

Federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, passed in 2021 in response to the pandemic, is paying for the grant. In November 2024, the Oregon Broadband Office announced it has nearly $141 million to expand broadband in underserved areas of the state. 

“Access to high-speed broadband is a literal lifeline for rural communities,” said Lane County Commissioner Heather Buch, whose district includes rural communities in south and east Lane County. “Connecting thousands more rural families through this project will continue to help them access critical job-related, educational, and other resources that often give more connected communities a competitive edge.”

Douglas Fast Net, the service provider, is receiving the funding, and the Lane Council of Governments worked with the county to identify areas that need service. Applicants were scored heavily based on areas that lack adequate service, putting the expansion in remote patches of the county. 

Interim Lane Council of Governments Planning Manager Jacob Callister said the project partners are “thrilled” that so many locations will get improved broadband, but added “we know that it does not fully close the digital divide for everyone in Lane County.”

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.