XFONE has announced that NTS Communications has recently been approved by the United States Department of Agriculture to receive $11.8 million in Rural Utilities Service (RUS) broadband loan funding for the purchase and installation of the network, central office and customer premise equipment that will make up NTS’ Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) optical network to be constructed in the Levelland and Smyer, Texas markets. The term of the loan is 17 years, with interest only to be paid in the first year.