Evan Feinman, a director with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), addressed the “elephant in the room,” specifically what the new Trump administration will mean for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. “My job is to faithfully execute the laws as written by Congress and as directed by my leadership, and we are getting an awful lot done," he said. "I believe that whether that leadership is the current leadership or future leadership, the goal will be to get this done for the American people.” While there is a lot of speculation about the future of BEAD under President-Elect Trump and his friend Elon Musk, Feinman pointed out that BEAD “was always a 10-year program” with the likelihood of political changes. And there were always going to be significant personnel turnovers over the course of a decade. "We don't have any reason to believe at present that there's going to be any sort of significant shift,” he said.

Charter CFO Jessica Fisher recently announced that Charter will spend substantially less on pursuing Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants than the company spent on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) [funny wording for how a company wins federal money]. This is big news because a natural assumption in some state broadband offices is that Charter would likely be a big player in the BEAD grant process. Charter has been a major participant in pursuing and winning State broadband grants funded by the American Rescue Plan Act and the Capital Projects Fund. The real concern for State Broadband Offices is that Charter might not be the only large internet service provider (ISP) thinking of ignoring BEAD. Most states are counting on large ISPs like Charter, Comcast, Frontier, Windstream, and Brightspeed to pursue BEAD. After anticipating the matching fund requirement, the total awards for BEAD projects will be more than $50 billion. If the big companies don’t participate, there may not be enough financial capacity in the rest of the industry to take on the matching requirements for winning BEAD grants.

Over $140 million in awards from the ConnectALL Municipal Infrastructure Grant Program will expand broadband infrastructure throughout Central New York, the Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Mid-Hudson, and Western New York regions. These public-private partnerships will lead to the construction of more than 1,200 miles of publicly-owned fiber optic infrastructure and wireless hubs, connecting over 60,000 homes and businesses with affordable, symmetric service — offering equal download and upload speeds at rates below regional averages. These six new grants build on previous awards, bringing the program’s total to $214.7 million, funded primarily by the Treasury Department’s Capital Projects Fund. Altogether, the program now supports over 2,000 miles of broadband infrastructure, reaching more than 87,000 homes and businesses statewide. [See link below for the list of Municipal Infrastructure Program awardees]

Comcast is footing most of the bill for a $55 million broadband network buildout in Indiana for which the company also won funding from the state. The state of Indiana awarded Comcast several grants totaling about $9.4 million to cover some of the costs of the buildout in June. The remaining $45 million-plus will be covered by Comcast, the company spokesperson confirmed.  That’s around 83 percent of total project costs. It’s an even higher percentage than the 62 percent that Comcast provided in awards made in a previous round of Indiana state broadband funding. The awards were made through Indiana’s Next Level Connections program, which targets unserved and underserved areas of the state. The program is administered by the Indiana Broadband Office and the Indiana Office of Community & Rural Affairs.

Securing our nation's cyber infrastructure is imperative. That is why all Department of Commerce networks have taken the first step to implement Internet routing security. Routing security ensures that Internet traffic reaches its intended target. Misconfigurations or manipulations of routing information can lead to significant degradation and loss of service. The United States Government is tackling concerns about routing security through a whole-of-government approach. The Department of Commerce is playing a leading role in these efforts:

• The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) works with stakeholders to research and develop routing security solutions, produce guidance, and operate testbeds.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), working with the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD), produced guidance for federal agencies on how to implement routing security via the Federal Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) Playbook.
• In May, the Department of Commerce held a Route Signing Day to mark a renewed effort to implement routing security across federal networks.
• In September, NTIA’s Communications Supply Chain Risk Information Partnership (C-SCRIP) hosted an Internet routing security webinar for stakeholders.