Massachusetts Joins Effort Urging the FCC to Release Connect America Funding to States

The state of Massachusetts has asked the Federal Communications Commission to release federal broadband Connect America funding to states. The funding in question was rejected by the nation’s largest price cap carriers in 2015. Granting the Massachusetts request would mean the FCC would hand over approximately $1 billion to 20 states over a period of six years, according to Telecompetitor’s estimate.

Massachusetts is one of several states served in large part by Verizon for local service. Verizon, unlike most large incumbent carriers, rejected the FCC’s initial offers of Connect America Fund (CAF) broadband funding. Accordingly, Massachusetts and other Verizon states have not received little or no federal CAF cash infusion of the sort that carriers in some other states have begun to use to help cover the costs of bringing broadband to high-cost areas where broadband is not available today.