Indiana makes deal expected to expand rural broadband access

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's office is finalizing plans that will expand rural high-speed Internet access in the coming years.

A preliminary agreement with Agile Networks will lease out state-owned cellphone towers for the next 25 years. That will bring in $50 million upfront - and potentially millions more in the years to come.

The company will build out the cellphone towers in the first phase of the project. That is expected to bring broadband to a large swath of southern Indiana that did not have access over the next year-and-a-half.

Remaining areas without broadband are projected to get access in the years that follow.

The Pence administration will use money offered upfront to pay for state bicentennial celebration projects.