Five sources of federal funding that are fueling broadband investment.

Here is an overview of the major federal funding vehicles for broadband that are helping to fuel the broadband investment cycle and are aimed at closing the digital divide so that all Americans have access to high-speed, reliable, affordable broadband:

• Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 directed National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to implement three new grant programs for broadband:
  • $288 million in Broadband Infrastructure Deployment Grants, to be distributed with a focus on public-private partnerships to serve rural areas;
  • $980 million for the Tribal Broadband Connectivity (TBC) grant program; and
  • a pilot program to connect community institutions that traditionally serve minorities, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs);
• American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), a coronavirus relief package, allocated just over $65 billion in direct aid to counties, boroughs, and parishes across the country and gave them several options on how to spend the money to assist in recovery from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic;
  • ARPA also included the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund, with $10 billion in direct payments to government entities through the US Treasury Department for projects including broadband;
• The ReConnect Program through the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). This program awards both grants and loans for broadband projects in rural areas, and it has boosted its required minimum speeds in a major way. Prior to 2020, ReConnect projects focused on connecting people who didn’t have access to a service option of at least 10/1 Mbps speeds.
  • The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) brought a refreshed stream of $2 billion to the program and shifted the metric to focus on where most people don’t have 100/20 Mbps service;
• The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, also a result of the IIJA, appropriated $42.45 billion for states, territories, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico to utilize for broadband deployment, mapping, and adoption projects. 
• The Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF), finalized in early 2020, is a $20.4 billion program through the Federal Communications Commission over 10 years to bring fixed broadband service to rural homes and small businesses that lack it.