Investing in Middle Mile Infrastructure

Provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provide a new funding mechanism to improve middle-mile infrastructure and make it easier to deliver broadband in currently unserved and underserved areas. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will create a program that makes grants on a technology-neutral, competitive basis to eligible entities for the construction, improvement, or acquisition of middle-mile infrastructure. The twin purposes are to 1) encourage the expansion and extension of middle-mile infrastructure to reduce the cost of connecting unserved and underserved areas to the backbone of the internet and 2) promote broadband connection resiliency through the creation of alternative network connection paths that can be designed to prevent single points of failure on a broadband network. To achieve these goals, the law creates a middle-mile grants program at the NTIA. Congress has allocated $1 billion for these competitive grants, available until September 30, 2026.

[Kevin Taglang is the Executive Editor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.]