The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)—as the agency responsible for administering the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program—provides additional guidance to inform the submission of Initial Proposals from states, territories, and the District of Columbia including the design and implementation of the BEAD Eligible Entity challenge processes. This Policy Notice elaborates on, but does not replace, the BEAD Eligible Entity (States, territories, and the District of Columbia) requirements outlined in the BEAD Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) that each Eligible Entity must adhere to for the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information to approve its Initial Proposal. This Policy Notice includes eight sections:

1. Sequence of Events: This section outlines the sequence of events for the submission of the Initial Proposal, challenge process administration, and challenge results review.
2. BEAD Volume 1 Submission Process: This section outlines the timeline and process for submitting the BEAD Initial Proposal Volume 1 to NTIA for review and approval.
3. Existing Broadband Funding Requirements: This section outlines the requirement to identify existing efforts funded by the federal government or an Eligible Entity within the jurisdiction of the Eligible Entity to deploy broadband and close the digital divide, including in Tribal Lands.
4. Initial Location Data Requirements: This section outlines requirements for using the National Broadband Map prior to the initiation of the challenge process, including identification of unserved and underserved locations and eligible community anchor institutions.
5. Modifications to Location Classifications: This section provides an overview of the requirement to run a deduplication of funding process to identify and remove locations with enforceable commitments prior to the initiation of the challenge process and requirements for pre-challenge process modifications of the location dataset.
6. BEAD Challenge Process Design Requirements: This section outlines the requirements for the design and implementation of the challenge process.
7. Post Challenge Process Updates: This section notes that Eligible Entities may, but are not required to, update their post-challenge data to reflect updates to the National Broadband Map that occur after the conclusion of the challenge process.
8. Post Challenge Process Review: This section outlines requirements for submission of the challenge process results to NTIA for review.

The Federal Communications Commission committed nearly $29 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Fund Program, which provides digital tools and services to support students in communities across the country. The commitment supports applications from the third application window, benefitting approximately 65,000 students nationwide, including students in California, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota. The announcement will support approximately 120 schools and school districts, 7 libraries and library systems, and 4 consortia. The funding can be used to support off-campus learning, such as nightly homework, and summertime online learning programs to ensure students across the country have the necessary support to keep up with their education.

America is in the midst of a “rural renaissance,” thanks to unprecedented investment in broadband, said Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association. Every dollar invested in broadband yields four dollars in benefits, said Kathryn de Wit, project director for the Broadband Access Initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts which has been closely following state broadband initiatives for several years and was instrumental in reshaping federal policy to give more autonomy to individual states in determining broadband needs and how to address them. States were spending money not just to get everyone online but because if they didn’t, entire towns would die, de Wit observed. As the US begins to roll out the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program, de Wit encouraged NTCA’s rural broadband provider members to meet with their state broadband offices to help in shaping the five-year plans that each state’s broadband office must submit. Another important benefit of broadband is that it can help motivate young people to remain in the community. When young people have high-speed broadband, they can have the same experiences with Tik Tok, Instagram and other social media as people in urban areas do and will feel less need to leave their home community, noted Will McIntee, White House senior advisor for public engagement.

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) is calling on Wisconsin households to share their internet experience to help direct recently announced broadband funding. On June 26, 2023, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Wisconsin will receive more than $1 billion under the Broadband Equity, Access & Deployment (BEAD) Program to connect every unserved home and business in the state to broadband internet. In an effort to inform the state's internet planning efforts, the PSC is encouraging all Wisconsin households to take the Wisconsin Internet Self-Report (WISER) survey by July 14, 2023. WISER is a survey with a speed test that is designed to capture customers’ experience with internet service. The data collected from WISER will help the PSC’s Wisconsin Broadband Office (WBO) understand a variety of broadband needs, and support internet adoption for Wisconsin residents by identifying areas where internet is not available, too expensive, underperforming, or too complex to subscribe. The survey is confidential and only takes minutes to complete.

The City of Dublin (OH) is announcing a new partnership with altafiber. The two parties will work to make Dublin the most connected city in the nation – by providing every premise in Dublin access to reliable, ultra-fast fiber. altafiber was selected following a “Request for Proposal” (RFP) process, seeking a partner to provide competitive access to internet service of 10 gigabits for all Dublin residents. The City of Dublin conducted various community surveys in recent years to determine residents’ experiences with their internet service. The survey results expressed a strong desire from residents for improved access to higher internet speeds, lower service costs and better customer service. Dublin, with its history of innovation in service delivery and community development, used this feedback to proactively address these vital connection needs. altafiber is the leading supplier of fiber-based services in Greater Cincinnati and has invested more than $1.5 billion into expanding its fiber network across Southwest Ohio. altafiber will be investing roughly $35 million in this fiber optic network. Additionally, the company will provide additional tech infrastructure, which could include a City Innovation Center or public Wi-Fi initiatives. The City will work to identify which choice best suits the needs of the community.

Spectrum announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to more than 300 homes and small businesses in Newberry County, South Carolina. Spectrum’s newly constructed fiber-optic network buildout in Newberry County is part of the company’s approximately $5 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF)-related investment in unserved rural communities, which includes $1 billion won in the Federal Communications Commission’s RDOF auction. The company’s RDOF expansion will provide broadband access to approximately 1 million customer locations as estimated by the FCC across 24 states in the coming years. Spectrum Internet delivers speeds up to 1 Gbps and Advanced Wi-Fi for both residential customers and small business clients, featuring starting speeds of 300 Mbps, with no modem fees, data caps or contracts. Spectrum Business Internet offers its clients plans with starting download speeds of 300 Mbps, with 600 Mbps and 1 Gbps options. Spectrum is also was a participant in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

Video streamers and other edge providers are fighting a multi-front war in Washington lately, as Congress applies pressure on the Federal Communications Commission to apply good-faith negotiation rules to over-the-top content providers, as it does traditional video providers, and as hundreds of rural broadband providers and associations call on the agency to make edge providers contribute to broadband buildout subsidies. The FCC wrestled with the issue of how and whether to regulate the over-the-top delivery of TV programming networks. The issue is online video provider access to content —  MVPDs are subject to program access and carriage rules — and providing FCC-enforced access to vertically integrated programming to promote competition to traditional video. With the backing of broadcasters, who have been trying to get more money for their online content, including by pushing for an antitrust exemption from Congress to negotiate for aggregated news content, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) wrote FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel asking her to revive the inquiry, this time focused on good-faith negotiation rules related to edge provider aggregation of news content from print and broadcast sources. Even before Sen. Cantwell sent her letter to Chairwoman Rosenworcel, she and other top senators were sent a letter from hundreds of groups calling on Congress to require streamers and other edge content providers to pay into the Universal Service Fund (USF) that subsidizes advanced telecommunications buildouts in rural and other hard-to-reach areas. Currently, the fund depends on traditional landline phone service and its dwindling customer base, and broadband providers do not pay into the fund other than for their internet phone service offerings.