Tornadoes, heavy rain, hurricane-force wind, and storm surge. Any of these could devastate a community. Hurricane Milton delivered them all to Florida earlier this month. Milton made landfall on October 9 in Siesta Key, south of Sarasota, as a Category 3 hurricane and continued out to the Atlantic as a Category 1 the next morning. The storm dropped nearly two feet of rain in some areas, causing flooding inland and adding more water onto the storm surge that was hitting parts of both coasts. Sustained winds were 120 miles per hour, toppling trees and ripping the roof off of Tropicana Field, where first responders were staging operations and thousands of people were taking shelter. More than 3 million people lost power across the state. The National Weather Service counted 45 reports of tornadoes across the southern half of the state. According to network outage data submitted by communications providers to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS), as of 9 a.m. (EDT) October 10 over twelve percent of cell sites in areas impacted by Hurricane Milton were out of service, mostly due to a lack of power. The counties impacted most were Sarasota and Polk, where nearly half of all cell sites were down, along with Hardee, Highlands, Manatee, and Pinellas where at least a third of cell sites were down. Cable and wireline companies reported 1,273,354 subscribers out of service in the disaster area, including the loss of telephone, television, and/or internet services. Florida, of course, knows firsthand how extreme weather can have an adverse effect on infrastructure. Due to its location and unique geographical ecosystems, the state faces unique weather risks and hazards that can cause damage to broadband infrastructure or delay its deployment. Florida has always been more vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms than any other U.S. state because its exposed, southern location is surrounded by warm waters. There are almost twice as many hurricanes that hit Florida as Texas, the second most impacted state. But shifting atmosphere and ocean conditions are making hurricane season even worse for Floridians. As Milton illustrates, natural disasters can severely damage broadband infrastructure, causing network failures that interrupt the continuity of many commercial, governmental, and social activities. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program requires states and territories to plan for how BEAD-funded networks will withstand climate-related disasters.

Procurement, permitting and people. Those are the three Ps to remember if you want to ensure a smooth broadband build. Steven Greene, Technical Program Manager at the Utah Broadband Center, said broadband builders often assume they can readily get the supplies they need for their projects. But without a solid procurement plan in place, shortages can quickly become problematic. That’s especially true of upcoming Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) projects. Steve Kristan, Lumos Fiber’s Director of Market Development for the state of Ohio, pointed to permitting as another key hurdle. Kristan also said builders should use lidar technology to assess the lay of the land underground rather than relying on municipal records, which are often inaccurate. And when builders inevitably hit a buried gas or power line, that’s when relationships with the people in local markets will really matter.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved Alaska and Ohio’s Initial Proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. The approval enables Alaska and Ohio to request access to funding and begin implementation of the BEAD program. This action allows states to request:  

• Alaska: Over $1 billion
• Ohio: Over $793 million

State officials have been working hard to suss out what kinds of skills ISPs need and how best to attract and train up new workers, said Edyn Rolls, Chief Strategic Officer for the Oklahoma Broadband Office. For instance, Oklahoma State University conducted a nationwide study to identify what areas of the broadband workforce need the biggest boost, she said. GIS mapping and engineering skills would be most in demand, the study found. But state officials have five years to finish their BEAD projects and an engineering degree takes four years to obtain — meaning it'll take almost as long to finish training the workforce as they have to finish the work according to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program timeline. So, figuring out how to align the need with the training required has been a challenge. A total of 174,800 construction workers and 186,900 technicians will be needed to execute BEAD builds, according to a recent study commissioned by the Workforce Development for the Fiber Broadband Association, noted director Todd Jackson. However, there’s expected to be a shortage of 28,000 workers on the construction side and 30,000 on the technician side between 2025 and 2030.

Governor Ned Lamont (D-CT) and Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Katie Dykes announced the release of $28 million in grants awarded under the first round of the state’s ConneCTed Communities Grant Program. Administered by DEEP, these grants will support the buildout of broadband infrastructure in more than half of Connecticut’s communities. A total of 88 cities and towns in the state, including 26 on the state’s Distressed Municipalities list, will benefit from the grants under this initial round. The funding comes from Connecticut’s portion of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Capital Project Fund dollars, which is designed to support access to high-speed internet by funding infrastructure projects to support the goal of universal access to affordable, resilient, and reliable broadband. A total of $40.8 million is available for this program.

At the Connected Oklahoma – Rural Broadband Summit in Oklahoma City, I shared my thoughts on the future of the Universal Service Fund (USF) and Low Earth Orbit satellites. Here's the homework I asked the audience to do:

1. Reach out to your anchor institutions and see how you might partner together.
2. If you are an electric co-op, reach out to an NTCA member to see how you might create some scope and scale and what you can do better together.
3. If you’re a policymaker, dig deeper to understand how the USF impacts your consumers' rates and deployment plans and plan to join our fight for the preservation and future of the program.
4. If you are a Smart Rural Community (SRC) provider, engage your community more on the ownership they should take for the successes you help power in the community and fully utilize that platform. For those who aren’t SRC providers, it’s important to still find ways to tell your story. Storytelling is among our most powerful tools, and it’s important to stop being modest about the work you are doing.

[Shirley Bloomfield is chief executive officer of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association]

In 2021 Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) agreed to lead the administration’s $42 billion plan for expanding high-speed internet to millions of Americans. That year, she tweeted that “we can bring broadband to rural America today.” Today, nearly three years after Congress passed the infrastructure bill that created the program, not one home or business has been connected through it. The Biden-Harris administration recently confirmed that construction projects won’t begin until next year at the earliest, and in many cases not until 2026. Instead of focusing on delivering broadband to unserved areas, the administration has used the program to advance a wish list of political goals. It has adopted regulations that include diversity, equity and inclusion requirements, climate-change rules, price controls, preferences for union labor, and schemes that favor government-run networks. The administration has been handing out wins to favored political groups rather than delivering results. In 2020 Elon Musk’s satellite service, Starlink, won an $885 million award from the Federal Communications Commission to offer high-speed internet to more than 640,000 rural homes and businesses. By a 2023 vote along party lines, the FCC revoked the award. As I noted in my dissent at the time, the FCC’s revocation couldn’t be explained by any objective application of the facts, the law or sound policy. In my view, it amounted to nothing more than regulatory lawfare against one of the left’s top targets: Musk. Rural communities stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide are paying the price.

[Carr is a Republican FCC commissioner.]

AT&T is urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move existing CBRS spectrum users to a different portion of the 3GHz band. The company said the FCC could do so by conducting an incentive auction and using the proceeds from that auction to finance the relocation of current CBRS operations. "We propose an incentive auction that builds upon the success of the FCC's prior incentive auctions in the 600 MHz and 39 GHz bands," AT&T argued on its website, in a post by Rhonda Johnson, AT&T's EVP of Federal Regulatory Relations. AT&T's broad goal is to free up the 3.55GHz-3.7GHz band for high-power, licensed operations—the kind of operations its 5G network currently uses.