Should states run their own broadband mapping challenges? States could choose to award grants in an technology-aware manner, adding 3.1 million locations currently served or underserved by DSL or 25/3 fixed wireless, which would have the same — or an even better — effect. There are 218,878 locations where a DSL offering is advertising 100 Mbps download throughput and 20 Mbps upload throughput or better, and there is no other offering to the location that would serve them at 100/20. Do we need a lengthy challenge process to determine that these locations should get upgraded service? I certainly don’t think so. I think it would be fair to states' residents if we consider (1) anyone served only by DSL, or (2) underserved by a 25/3 offering to be eligible for a broadband upgrade with this generational funding opportunity. It takes us up from 7.8 million unserved to 10.8 million unserved, and actually lowers the underserved from 5 million to 2.3 million (because so many became unserved). It’s technology-aware and it’s fair.

Lt. Governor Dianne Primavera (D-CO) announced a statewide initiative to increase awareness of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a long-term benefit to help eligible households pay for high-speed internet. More than 792,000 Colorado households are eligible for the ACP, while only 23% of those eligible have enrolled. The Colorado ACP Act Now initiative unites a broad coalition of 71 partner cities, community-based organizations, and trusted institutions in partnership with EducationSuperHighway (ESH), the national non-profit with a mission to close the broadband affordability gap. ESH will support statewide awareness efforts by training community leaders and partner organizations and providing outreach materials and tools to help households enroll. The non-profit recently launched GetACP.org/Colorado, a virtual mobile assistant that simplifies the ACP enrollment process by providing real-time support to help eligible households determine the easiest way to qualify. The mobile website is available in four languages and helps applicants overcome critical barriers in the enrollment process by helping them identify the documents needed when applying and find "free with ACP" broadband plans available in their area.

The Martin County, MN, Board of Commissioners has authorized a historic $1.5 million of funding for rural broadband development assistance. The partnership program would help cover up to half the cost of expanding fiber internet to people’s homes in areas currently underserved by existing internet infrastructure and is expected to generate at least $3 million worth of infrastructure improvements. While larger cities in Martin County such as Fairmont, Sherburn, and Truman already have easy access to broadband, a diminishing economy of scale means speeds quickly decrease for people living outside of these areas. In rural areas, the increased distance between homes means fewer customers per mile of fiber cable installation and higher costs of installation for internet service providers. Subsidizing rural broadband development can help reduce inequalities in access. The program is financed by federal funds disbursed as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) passed in 2021 and would help pay for the last mile of fiber installation to the premises capable of reaching download and upload speeds of at least 500 megabytes per second. In order to qualify a project must serve an area that is classified as underserved or unserved by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development’s Office of Broadband. These areas have download speeds that don’t exceed 25 megabits per second and upload speeds that don’t exceed three megabits per second.

Internet usage has continued to grow, and at the end of 2022, there were 5.54 billion Internet users, meaning that 69% of people worldwide have Internet access. Here are some facts:

• There are still roughly 2.7 billion people with no broadband access. New users on the Internet are growing at a rate of 8.2% annually. 
• The penetration of Internet usage still varies tremendously by continent. In North America, 93.4% of people use the Internet; followed by Europe at 89.2%; and the lowest penetration is Africa at 43.2% and Asia at 67%. Asia has the most Internet users at over 2.9 billion compared to 747 million in Europe and 348 million in North America. China has over 1 billion Internet users.
• The overall use of bandwidth continues to grow, and broadband usage for the world grew by 1,355% from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2022.
• The fastest-growing use of the Internet is in the Middle East, which saw usage grow by 6,141% since the beginning of 2020. 90% of people in the world use a mobile device to go online. Mobile devices account for 55% of all web traffic. Samsung is the largest mobile vendor with a 28.8 % market share. The second is Apple at 27.8%. 
• The most popular languages on the Internet are English (25.9%), Chinese (19.4%), and Spanish (8%),
• About 32% of all Internet users are between the ages of 25 and 34. 
• The most popular web browser in the world is Chrome (65.5%), followed by Safari (18.8%), Microsoft Edge (4.3%), and Firefox (3.2%). Google controls worldwide search with 92.7% of all searches, with Bing a distant second at 2.8%. Almost 30% of all global web traffic is initiated via an online search. There are currently 106,000 Google searches per second.

Many of these statistics are estimates, and there are varying estimates to be found for many of the statistics. Probably the biggest takeaway is that demand to use the Internet continues to soar, with over 8% more users worldwide every year.

Consumers in central Florida are apparently hungry for fiber. WideOpenWest (WOW!) CEO Teresa Elder said the company is seeing strong uptake of its service, including its higher-tier products. WOW! announced its launch in Altamonte Springs, FL, in January 2022, noting at the time it had around 1,000 passings in the city. Elder said the market had already achieved a 25% penetration rate – which she noted was quite near the 30% rate WOW! was targeting in the timeframe of a year or more after launch. While Elder acknowledged the penetration figure will likely fluctuate as more passings are added, she said the company is “thrilled” with the early results. According to Elder, around 70% of WOW!’s customers overall are taking speeds of 500 Mbps or above, with more than 50% of its base subscribing to such tiers. CFO John Rego added that up-tiering is happening not only within WOW! legacy markets but also in its greenfield territory WOW! ended 2022 with around 1.9 million homes passed between its cable and fiber assets. Elder declined to provide a target for the number of greenfield fiber passings WOW! is looking to add in 2023. However, she did say it plans to ramp up its expansion work significantly since a lot of the design and permitting groundwork needed to do so was already laid in 2022.