Joan Engebretson

The Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) have recommended filing dates for bulk challenges to the National Broadband Map, which is updated twice yearly. But stakeholders hadn’t seen similar guidance from either agency about individual challenges.

Service providers in the state of Washington are concerned about legislation pending in the state’s House of Representatives.

Blackfoot Communications, a provider serving rural areas of Montana and Idaho, is getting set to begin work on seven fiber deployment projects for which the company was awarded $60 million through Montana’s ConnectMT program. Blackfoot will contribute an additional $16 million toward total project costs of $76 million. Funding was awarded in December 2022, but as Chris Laslovich, public affairs manager for Blackfoot, said any company planning fiber deployments using buried cable in Montana (as Blackfoot plans to do) has to wait until this time of year or later to begin construction.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is in “close coordination” with the Federal Communications Commission regarding the update to the second version of the National Broadband Map, which will be used to determine state Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) allocations. “We are working with our colleagues at the FCC to determine when we will obtain the version of the map to use for our BEAD allocations,” an NTIA spokesperson said. NTIA is scheduled to release state BEAD allocations by June 30, 2023, and undoubtedly will need some time to work with t

Frontier Communications is “very excited” about the possibility of using Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding to deploy fiber broadband to areas that aren’t currently part of the company’s plan to have fiber available to 10 million locations by 2025, said Chief Strategy Officer Vishal Dixit. He declined to say how many locations might be eligible for funding in the $42.5 billion BEAD program.

At a time when some service providers are revving up to get funding in the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, TDS Telecom President and CEO Jim Butman had a surprising take on it. The company already has upgraded a large part of its traditional local service territory to fiber broadband but has about 500,000 locations that are served by DSL, including about 200,000 or fewer that do not have service at speeds of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) available to them. Those locations would be considered unserved and eligible for BEAD funding.

Private equity firms have been investing heavily in broadband providers in recent years, typically infusing cash into their acquisitions to expand operations, increase a company’s value and then do an initial public offering or sell the company at a profit several years later. What do private equity firms look for in a broadband acquisition? How involved are they in a provider’s operations? For EQT Group, fiber is a top selection criterion in making acquisitions.

Two states recently made moves on broadband funding. Funding bills were passed by legislatures and signed into law by governors in Alabama and Idaho. Governor Kay Ivey (R-AL) signed legislation to make $260 million in funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) available for broadband deployments. The funding represents a portion of $1.06 billion that was released to the state in its final ARPA allotment.

Cable companies’ wireless offerings are a bigger threat to wireless providers than wireless providers’ broadband offerings are to cable companies, according to a new research note from industry financial analysts at SVB MoffettNathanson. It’s a contrarian view at a time when fixed wireless offerings from T-Mobile and Verizon are stealing cable broadband subscribers and the mobile market is heavily saturated. The researchers base their analysis on several key market realities. One of the most critical is that the wireless industry is roughly twice the size of the broadband industry.

States are making plans for awarding funding in the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. The issue is particularly complex because concerns have arisen about how soon the Federal Communication Commission's National Broadband Map will be accurate enough to be used for that purpose. BEAD Program Director Evan Feinman advised states that they could do their own challenge process for the FCC Broadband Map. One state that plans to rely, in large part, on the FCC map is Idaho. Ramón S.