Stambaugh: Last Locations in Perry, Juniata Counties to Receive High-Speed Internet Access

October 8, 2026

HARRISBURG – As part of the release of the first $448 million of $711 million in federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants earmarked for the Commonwealth, Rep. Perry Stambaugh (R-Perry/Juniata) announced that $12.491 million in BEAD dollars were awarded within the 86th State House District.

BEAD spending will ensure virtually all Commonwealth residents, if they choose, can finally connect to high-speed (200/200 megabits per second, or Mbps, and as fast as 2 gigabits) internet service via fiber-based technologies or low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites. Juniata and Perry counties are among the 11 statewide where more than 50 percent of tested broadband hook-ups (primarily over aging copper phone wires) have been measured as “unserved,” with internet speeds below 25/3 Mbps.

“By bridging the rural-urban digital divide, enhanced internet can bring world-class telecommunications to our businesses, schools, and homes, including the promise of reliable cell phone service and significantly improved dial-up telephone networks,” Stambaugh notes.

In Perry and Juniata counties, Connect Holding II LLC (doing business as Brightspeed) garnered $10.205 million to hook up 2,664 locations in Perry (2,486, $9.496 million) and Juniata (178, $709,490) counties with broadband fiber. Coupled with Brightspeed’s own private investment of $13.9 million, more than 3,700 total premises in Perry, Juniata, and Franklin counties will receive high-speed fiber.

Overall, Brightspeed landed $41.711 million to connect 9,078 premises across 14 counties of its 25-county service territory.

Black Bear Fiber, a unit of Centre WISP (Centre WISP covers portions of Perry and Juniata counties with wireless internet), was approved for $10.299 million to link 1,861 businesses, schools, and families with gigabit fiber in a multi-county initiative that covers much of Juniata County. The Juniata County part of the system, encompassing more than $2.286 million in spending and reaching 413 locations, will run along Routes 75 and 35 from the Huntingdon County line to East Waterford and Blacklog, then resume east of McCoysville through Nook, Walnut, Spruce Hill, and Licking Creek to Mifflin Borough before spinning north around Mifflintown through Arch Rock and continuing east and south and toward Oakland Mills, Van Wert, Mexico, Center, Locust Run, and Vandyke.

Two LEO firms — SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper — also captured BEAD grants to serve customers in both counties.
In addition to the BEAD money, the PA Broadband Development Authority has previously awarded $204 million in COVID-19 ARPA Capital Projects Fund grants through the Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP) to expand high-speed Internet connections across the Commonwealth.

One of the BIP grants, for $782,163, was used by Brightspeed as part of a $1.04 million project to install 32 miles of broadband fiber (providing minimum upload and download speeds of 200/200 megabits per second, or Mbps) to 522 unserved locations in Jackson, Saville, Southwest Madison, and Toboyne townships, as well as Blain Borough in western Perry County. That work is 84 percent complete.

Brightspeed has also completed work on several self-financed broadband rollouts that will serve roughly 5,590 locations in the boroughs (and swaths of neighboring townships) of Duncannon, Liverpool, Marysville, and Newport, alongside additional builds in Blain and the village of Ickesburg.

Zito Media’s BIP projects will reach 1,220 locations in Perry County (70 percent complete), and 2,743 premises in Juniata County (37 percent finished pending resolution of a dispute over pole attachments with FirstEnergy).

For the handful of homes that aren’t able (likely due to geography) to receive fiber-to-the home high-speed broadband after the BIP- and BEAD-financed schemes become operational, satellite internet options (LEOs such as Starlink and Project Kuiper, or larger dish setups like Hughesnet) along with slower, increasingly unreliable digital subscriber line (DSL) service over telephone lines remain available.

Representative Perry Stambaugh
86th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Greg Gross
ggross@pahousegop.com
717.230.6374
Repperrystambaugh.com