Internet/Broadband

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)awarded grants totaling $8,394,947.57 to 17 Tribes as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program: 

There are about 8.5 million locations in America that lack access to quality service. In Virginia, there are more than 360,000 locations that are unserved or underserved. Each of those locations represents a generations-old farm that can’t harvest using modern tools, a fledgling small business stuck in an analog era, a working class family cut off from vital telehealth care, or a young student missing out on lifechanging opportunities that the digital world can provide. But as of this week, that all changes.

[The National Telecommunications and Information Administration] just announced the amounts each state and territory will receive from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. That includes $813 million for Tennessee to build future-proof networks to connect everyone in the state. Our task is simple, but it’s monumental: we are going to bridge the digital divide. For good. But we cannot reach that goal without industry stepping up.

Providing internet to every household and small business by 2030 may not take a village, but it will require the efforts of local officials and service providers working together to pave the way for fast and efficient construction, an effort that the National Association of Counties (NACo) says its members have been steadily working on. “About two years ago, we put together NACo’s Broadband Task Force,” said Seamus Dowdall, NACo's Associate Legislative Director for Telecommunications & Technology. The task force generated a report to define how counties could facilitate the deployment o

Just as the Federal Communications Commission is launching the Learn Without Limits initiative to update E-Rate to better meet the connectivity needs of today and the future, the FCC's July 2023 Open Meeting will feature an opportunity to get a previous E-Rate reform over the finish line. Here are all the items we’ve lined up:

GoNetspeed, a fiber provider primarily operating in New England, is encouraging Massachusetts to adopt legislation that would simplify the process for deploying new broadband infrastructure.

The US government just dished out $930 million in support for middle mile broadband projects, but a pair of experts said there’s demand for billions in additional funding. Both noted that states could be the next big source of support as they work out how to divvy up their newly allocated Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) allotments. Zayo was one of the big winners in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) recent award round for the Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program, scooping up nearly $93 million for three projects.

Hartford (VT) residents at long last have a new internet provider in town, ECFiber. It is Vermont’s first Communications Union District, a community-driven telecommunications operation. ECFiber already has 8,000 residential and business customers on over 1,500 miles of network around Vermont’s Upper Valley. The company will continue the build-out this summer by giving new rural customers broadband service to houses in member towns. Officials said they expect over 18,000 customers on the network. However, there is still more work to be done.

People continue to cut ties with cable broadband providers as reports from MoffettNathanson show cable broadband subscriber growth numbers are plummeting year over year.  Broadband cable started 2021 with 6.9 percent growth year over year and continued to fall roughly 1 percent each quarter throughout the year, ending with 3.8 percent growth.