Joan Engebretson

The latest broadband public-private partnership comes from Ziply, which will bring fiber broadband at speeds up to 50Gbps symmetrically to Camaro Island, Washington. The deployment will require an investment of almost half a million dollars, some of which will come from Ziply and some of which will come from Island County.

Windstream is offering free upgrades to its Kinetic fiber broadband service to 33,000 customers currently served by slower speed DSL infrastructure. The company is calling the initiative “Project Glass Echo.” Eligible DSL customers can get speeds of 300Mbps at no extra charge on their monthly bills, regardless of what speed they were previously receiving, said Ben Midanek, Windstream’s chief marketing officer for Kinetic. There are eligible customers throughout Windstream’s 18-state footprint.

For years, the federal government has avoided any attempt to resolve a long-standing problem: how to sustain funding for the Universal Service program. But perhaps that could change now that the lack of funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) has gained substantial mindshare with the American public. Some stakeholders believe both problems can be solved by funding the ACP through the Universal Service Fund (USF) and expanding the types of entities that are required to pay to support the program.

Two entities—Maverix Broadband and the Southern Colorado Economic Development District—have won over $750,000 for rural broadband buildouts through an innovative Colorado program. The program, known as the Location Modification Program, followed awards made in the state’s Advance Colorado Broadband Grant Program, which was funded through the federal Capital Projects Fund.

Rules for the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program give individual states considerable leeway in how they define project areas—and broadband providers applying for funding should expect to see considerable variation from one state to the next. Depending on the state, providers may even be able to define their own project areas. There is considerable variation among states that are allowing providers to define their own project area. For example, Louisiana established clusters of Hex9s, which the state calls sub project areas (SPAs).

Associations representing large and small broadband providers are presenting a united front in opposition to New York’s requirement that providers offer a low-income internet service for $15 a month. In a prepared statement, six telecommunications provider associations said they support efforts to connect all Americans to broadband and that they are “committed to providing affordable options and a variety of plans to meet every family’s needs.” They added, however, that they are “disappointed” by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold New York’s mandatory $15-a-month offerin

As the Federal Communications Commission's Affordable Connectivity Program gets set to end at the end of May, at least three internet providers touted alternative low-cost offerings, including some available only to low-income households. During the ACP’s 29-month existence, numerous providers have offered a $30 service for low-income customers so that service is essentially free when the ACP discount is applied, and some of the providers plan to continue to offer the $30 services. With a few exceptions, however, service will no longer be free.

Alabama-based Dragonfly Internet was created in 2023 when ITC Holding Company bought a local fixed wireless provider and opted to change the name. Since then, Dragonfly has been upgrading the fixed wireless equipment that the previous company had deployed and expanding to unserved and underserved areas using a mixture of fixed wireless and fiber. “Our preference is to use fiber where we can,” CEO David Hartin said. “But there will be communities where fixed wireless will make a lot of sense to do.

The City of Cabot, Arkansas, is getting a high-speed broadband network that the city will own and that will be operated by Connect2First, the broadband unit of local power company First Electric Cooperative Corporation. Unlike many broadband buildouts these days, the network will be built without any government funding.

Over a quarter of states are expected to be able to have enough Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding to get broadband to all their unserved and underserved areas and still have money left. At the other end of the spectrum, some states are struggling to meet national goals of making broadband available to everyone and to deploy fiber to the maximum extent possible.