Congressman John Moolenaar has signed on as a cosponsor of the Gigabit Opportunity Act, which would create opportunity zones in low-income rural and urban areas that currently lack the federal minimum broadband service.

States would designate the opportunity zones in their state and tax incentives would be provided for the companies that build broadband Internet service in those area.

“Many rural communities in Michigan lack the infrastructure necessary to provide access to broadband service, making it more difficult for students to do homework and for seniors to access telemedicine,” said Moolenaar. “This new legislation complements my efforts to expand broadband access through the BOOST Act, and it would encourage providers to build more broadband infrastructure in our rural communities.”

The Gigabit Opportunity Act complements the BOOST Act, which Moolenaar introduced earlier this year.

The BOOST Act would allow rural homeowners and primary lessees to claim a $300 tax credit after purchasing a mobile hotspot they can use to connect to the Internet or a signal booster they can use to increase the speed of a slow connection. Both the BOOST Act and the Gigabit Opportunity Act apply only to areas where Internet connection speeds are below the federal minimum standard of service, which 25 megabytes per second for downloads and 3 megabytes per second for uploads.