About a year ago Congress reprimanded the USDA for funding more urban broadband development than rural broadband when the purpose of its programs is specifically to bring broadband to rural areas that lack it. The USDA has been working on improvements since that time. The latest of those improvements is that they have issued a loan designed to bring wireless portable broadband connectivity to over 50 rural areas across seventeen different states. The loan, which exceeds a quarter billion dollars, was given to a company called Open Range Communications which is going to use the funding, along with private investments, to bring WiMax and satellite Internet to areas currently not served by broadband. Their goal is to bring broadband to six million people in the next five years.