More than $5 million in federal stimulus money will help pay for 110 miles of new ultra-high-speed broadband Internet "pipeline" twisting from Blacksburg through six counties to the new Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke and on to Bedford.

That was one of two major projects announced by members of the state's Congressional delegation on Monday.

The other will serve Southside Virginia, adding Internet pipeline at somewhat slower rates than the Blacksburg-to-Bedford line. It's much longer -- 465 miles -- and will directly connect more than 120 schools to high-speed Internet service.

In both cases, broadband service, either wired or wireless, is expected to eventually extend to thousands of predominantly rural residences and businesses that don't have access now, and at less cost than if private internet service providers had to construct the pipeline themselves.

Both projects will be "open source," meaning that commercial Internet service providers will be able to tap into them. The idea is to make broadband available in locations, particularly rural ones, that wouldn't otherwise be financially lucrative for private companies.

Virginia's U.S. senators, Mark Warner and Jim Webb, made the announcement along with U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Albemarle County, and U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon. Warner, Webb and Perriello participated in a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon.

Both Webb and Perriello praised Warner, who as governor of Virginia helped create the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative in 2004. It already provides service to a broad swath of Southside.

The cooperative's creators "decided we could not wait for the providers and had to do this ourselves," Warner said. Using settlement money from the national lawsuit against tobacco companies, state funds and other federal dollars, they built the cooperative's broadband network.

These extensions of that, he said, lead to "two separate paths of jobs. One is created by putting in the fiber for the broadband capability, but the more important economic activity is what is generated by having high-speed Internet" available to businesses.

Perriello compared the project to "our generation's equivalent of rural electrification. It's a game-changer for kids and for local companies, giving them a competitive advantage.

"It's the difference between spending money and making an investment," he said.

The Blacksburg to Bedford project -- expected to provide speeds from 10 gigabits per second up to 200 gigabits per second -- will receive $5.5 million in stimulus funding, to be matched with $1.4 million from the Virginia Tech Foundation, which will administer the grant.

The Southside project -- which will start at 10 megabits per second and eventually provide up to 100 megabits per second -- will get $16 million in stimulus money to be matched by $4 million from the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative. The co-op will oversee that project.