"I’m grateful for the opportunity to update you on our progress as we prepare to launch these programs in a little more than 100 days," said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to the Senate Appropriations Committee in a February 1 hearing on expanding broadband access through programs established in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. "The law has built-in flexibility to address each states' specific needs," said Raimondo, stressing that there will not be a one size fits all approach to distributing funding through programs like the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. "Under the law, each state will get a minimum of $100 million, and the remaining money will be allocated by need, based primarily on the number of unserved households," she said. "States will be given initial planning funds that they can use to develop a five-year action plan, in collaboration with local and regional entities, to cover everyone in their state."

Secretary Raimondo highlighted the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)'s stakeholder engagement efforts "to help inform the development and implementation of the broadband programs" the department is tasked with running. The NTIA has held "three virtual, public listening sessions" with stakeholders about the upcoming programs, and has also "issued a request for comment to gain further input on program design, policy issues, and other implementation considerations." All told, Raimondo said the Commerce Department believes the $65 billion in broadband funding will create between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs as reported by Fierce. To help fill those positions, she said NTIA is allowing states to use their BEAD money to do apprenticeships, job training and recruiting. Raimondo told Senate appropriators that the Federal Communications Commission has said to expect more accurate broadband maps by summer 2022, as reported by Politico.

Mayor Michelle Wu (D-MA) and Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) announced an investment of over $12 million to bring digital equity and inclusion to nearly 23,000 Boston (MA) public housing residents, library users, and school-age families. This new funding provides free access to wireless broadband service and devices to help public housing seniors and residents get online, and will also provide Chromebooks to Boston Public Schools (BPS) students. As part of this investment, the Boston Public Library (BPL) will receive $2.2 million in Emergency Connectivity Funding (ECF) to acquire and distribute Chromebooks and home router Wi-Fi access for 3,000 BPL patrons in public housing. In addition, the Boston Public Schools will receive nearly $10 million for Chromebooks and support connectivity for 20,000 Boston Public Schools’ families. This deployment will address additional needs following BPS’ initial distribution of 55,000 Chromebooks and 8,000 hotspots/home routers. The BPL’s Long Term Device Lending Program will distribute Chromebooks and WiFi devices through the Boston Housing Authority’s communities. In order to target the unmet digital needs of vulnerable and eligible library patrons in public housing, these devices will be sent directly to eligible patrons under long-term loan agreements. The BPL and BHA are currently reaching out to key vulnerable constituencies, including seniors, disabled citizens, new immigrants, and veterans.

Rural-focused service provider Nextlink announced plans to deploy fiber and fixed wireless broadband in 10 counties in east-central Illinois in cooperation with Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative (EIEC). An EIEC spokesperson said the cooperative is not contributing toward the cost of the network build, stating, “EIEC is in the process of implementing an advanced metering system. It requires an extensive communication network. We’ve been able to work with Nextlink on some shared sites where we both need infrastructure, including some locations owned by EIEC.” The fixed wireless service that Nextlink will deploy will support speeds of at least 100 Mbps and up to 1 Gbps in certain areas. “Expect to see internet service from Nextlink to become available over much of east central Illinois in early 2022,” said the company. Nextlink also noted that concurrently with the project, the company will roll out “extensive IoT (Internet of Things) network coverage in east-central Illinois to facilitate the use of IoT devices in the agricultural sector.” Nextlink was a big winner in the 2018 Connect America Fund (CAF II) rural broadband funding program and was one of the largest winning bidders in the subsequent Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) rural broadband funding program. The company was awarded $281 million in CAF II funding and is slated to receive $429 million in the RDOF program.

Cable and telecommunications internet service providers are pushing back on Democratic Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society]'s promise to recuse herself from some issues if confirmed. They‘re suggesting such an offer signals a wider problem with which issues she would or should be weighing in on, and what impact that would have on the agency and the industry. NCTA – The Internet & Television Association and USTelecom, in separate but similar letters to the chair and ranking members of the Senate Commerce Committee, told them they had issues with Sohn‘s promised recusal from certain broadcast matters. The trade groups signaled there are some cable/broadband-related issues — think net neutrality — for which her past advocacy should raise similar concerns, if there are any concerns to be raised. Sohn has pledged not to participate in agency decisions regarding retransmission consent or copyright issues if she is confirmed to the open Democratic seat on the commission. That stems from her advocacy on those issues when she headed Public Knowledge.