State Broadband Policy Explorer

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ state broadband policy explorer lets you learn how states are expanding access to broadband through laws. Categories in the tool include: broadband programs, competition and regulation, definitions, funding and financing, and infrastructure access. As you choose categories, a 50-state map illustrates which states have adopted such laws, which includes state statutes related to broadband as of Jan. 1, 2019. Each entry provides a summary of relevant policy as well as links to find the full text. "We wanted to make it accessible to everyone from a legislative staffer to your Aunt Betty who's running a community broadband effort on an island in Maine," says Kathryn de Wit, a manager at the Broadband Research Initiative at Pew Charitable Trusts.  "We realized as we were doing the research to get an idea of what policy looks like across the country that there really wasn't any other kind of tool that gets everything about broadband policy in one place," de Wit says. Pew researchers also plan to explore which state-level policies have been most effective at spurring broadband deployment.