The federal government is in the midst of distributing an unprecedented amount of broadband funding to states. In 2021 the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) created the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, which is poised to grant states a historic amount of funding totaling $42.45 billion in order to expand high-speed Internet access. To get the money, however, eligible states and territories in the US must submit initial planning funds applications ahead of the  August 15 deadline to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). At stake for each applicant is $5 million in initial planning funds. Ahead of the August 15 deadline, Government Technology spoke with stakeholders and experts to glean some key advice.

The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) and the Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) initiated the urban rate survey for 2023. The information collected in this survey will be used to develop voice and broadband reasonable comparability benchmarks that will be in place in 2023. The FCC e will be collecting the rates offered by a random sample of providers of fixed services identified using December 2021 FCC Form 477 data. The FCC will collect separate samples for fixed voice and fixed broadband services, in up to 500 urban census tracts for voice services and up to 2,000 urban census tracts for broadband services. Because some providers serve many urban census tracts, these providers may receive surveys for multiple census tracts. Notifications that a provider is required to complete a survey will be sent via email to each selected provider’s FCC Form 477 contact person and certifying official on August 15, 2022. The survey consists of an online reporting form, which will be accessible only to the selected providers. The email notification will provide detailed information on how to access and complete the survey online and how to obtain technical assistance. Completed surveys will be due on September 19, 2022.

Community specialists with Washington State University (WSU) Extension are partnering with the Washington State Broadband Office (WSBO) to enhance the capacity of Washington communities, especially those in rural and remote areas, to provide better and more equitable access to reliable, high-speed internet. Funded by the Washington State Department of Commerce, the one-year, $8 million statewide Broadband Action Team (BAT) Implementation and Support project aids county and community efforts with training, planning support, and resources coordinated through Extension offices to enhance internet access in underserved, primarily rural communities. Under a contract finalized on August 9, Extension team members and funding will aid the development of locally created plans that help communities advocate for, fund, and launch internet infrastructure projects. The Extension-led program will also provide funding support for local digital equity efforts by counties and tribes. As the Washington State Broadband Office moves forward with planning how federal funding can be best targeted to expand broadband services, the agency sees the partnership with WSU Extension as an important step in developing grassroots Broadband Action Teams across the state.

A committee advising Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) on a massive state grant program billed as a historic effort to enhance broadband connectivity across rural Montana has plowed into rocky ground as it considers a list of recommended projects. An initial ranking of proposed grants to private telecommunications companies, produced by the state Department of Administration, recommended that nearly half of the Connect MT program’s funding, $126 million, be awarded to projects proposed by Charter Communications — an amount that has drawn the ire of smaller, Montana-based companies that want more support for their own networks. The Republican-controlled 2021 Montana Legislature responded to the American Rescue Plan Act by passing its own bill setting up a system of advisory committees to make recommendations to the governor about federally-funded investments in water infrastructure, public health, economic development and broadband. The broadband program is tasked by law with prioritizing access for “frontier, unserved and underserved areas.” The Department of Administration Director Misty Ann Giles, the committee’s vice-chair, described the $258 million program as a learning experience for the state government, which hasn’t previously managed a large broadband program. The scoring system the department used to rank applications, she said at an Aug. 2 meeting, “is not perfect by any means.”

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)'s major move towards crafting data privacy rules is the latest signal of a potential end to Big Tech's expansive use of online data. As people grow warier of the online trails of digital data they leave behind, the lack of data privacy protections in the US has increasingly become a glaring source of concern for many. The FTC voted 3-2 along party lines to seek comment on the harms of "commercial surveillance" and whether privacy rules are needed. The advance notice of proposed rulemaking, the first step in the rulemaking process, asks several questions about companies' data collection practices and the potential to harm consumers, including children. "We've seen now that the growing and continuing digitization of our economy means that [privacy violations and data security breaches] may now be prevalent, and that case by case enforcement may fail to adequately deter law breaking or remedy the resulting harms," FTC chair Lina Khan said. Meanwhile, the FTC's efforts come as bipartisan lawmakers try to pass the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (H.R. 8152), which has advanced farther than similar proposals.  The FTC could spur Congress to act on long-awaited federal privacy legislation, and start to lay out what American digital privacy rules could look like.