- CenturyLink (CTL +0.7%) says it's accepting $3B in funds -- $500M a year for six years -- to accelerate the spread of rural broadband in 33 states.
- The company is taking funds from the FCC's Connect America Fund Phase II, in order to bring service with 10 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream to about 1.2M rural households and businesses. It had previously taking $75M in phase I interim funding to bring 4 Mbps broadband to 114,000 unserved locations.
- CenturyLink will finalize a buildout and begin construction in early 2016. The company declined accepting the statewide offers for California, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Wyoming.
- Meanwhile, the company has begun cutting jobs in Colorado, 150 of the 1,000 job cuts it was planning.