Nearly 650 customers in John Day will benefit from a $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development’s ReConnect Pilot Program.

The Oregon Telephone Corp. will use the program to deploy 89 miles of fiber optics to service the remote area of John Day and other places in the United States, according to a statement by the USDA.

The first new fiber route is northwest of John Day and will connect the towns of Long Creek, Monument and Spray. The second route will start at the northern edge of the town of Seneca and continue to Canyon City, just south of John Day.

The program will provide network speeds from 30 megabits per second to 1 gigabyte per second. Currently many areas of John Day lack internet service faster than 1.5 megabits per second.

The grant program is part of a $600 million grant to the USDA approved by Congress in 2018 to provide high speed internet to rural communities.