How State Broadband Offices Are Using Initial Dollars from Capital Projects Fund

States are implementing a variety of strategies as they allocate the initial rounds of federal Capital Projects Fund (CPF) dollars to help expand access to broadband services. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has officially released more than half of the CPF dollars, with $6 billion awarded to 40 states as of May 2023. Approaches to using the funding differ widely depending on states’ needs and resources, but in many instances, officials are making these decisions while planning how best to use other federal funding still to come in order to ensure that more residents will have high-speed internet. As of April 2023, the majority of CPF funding announcements have involved states using funds to expand or create programs that target what is known as last-mile service—the broadband connections available directly for customers’ homes or businesses—in unserved and underserved areas. Those are typically areas without access to internet speeds of 25/3 Mbps or 100/20 Mbps, respectively, depending on the definitions used by each state and territory.