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An $11 million investment in regional infrastructure is planned to bring high-speed, low-latency connectivity to more than 6,600 locations in western Maine. These are sites that either don’t currently have access to the internet or have access to slower broadband or copper-based connections. The funding for the project, which entails building more than 450 miles of fiber, was announced by FirstLight, a provider of digital infrastructure services. The Maine Connectivity Authority made the agreement with FirstLight to receive the funding.

At last count, New Hampshire had about 31,000 unserved and underserved locations eligible for the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Matthew Conserva, New Hampshire’s broadband program manager, expects that number to drop considerably by the time the state starts taking applications for $197 million in BEAD funding allotted to it. The number of locations eligible for BEAD funding has been declining as deployments are made that were funded through various federal funding programs, Conserva said.

President-elect Donald Trump announced he will appoint current Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr to be the next FCC chair. Here’s a few observations on what this is likely to mean for the telecommunications and broadband industry. Net Neutrality undoubtedly will be reversed again. Since its inception, it has come and gone, depending on which party is in the White House. A Republican commission under Carr could have another big impact that would be detrimental to big tech, according to a research note from Washington insider and National Broadband Plan author Blair Levin.

Broadband consumption experienced a milestone during the third quarter of the year as upstream traffic increased two times as fast as downstream traffic, according to OpenVault. The firm found that year-over-year upstream traffic increased 13.9%, while downstream increased by 6.8%. Overall traffic growth was 7.2%, according to the OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report. The trend of upstream outpacing downstream traffic is well established and consistent with the evolution of end point-generated content.

The state of Vermont has awarded all the broadband funds that it received through the federal Capital Projects Fund (CPF), said Rob Fish, deputy director for the Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB). As a result of the construction, some previously unserved and underserved areas of the state won’t need funding through the rural broadband Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, according to Fish. VCBB awarded more than $184.5 million through its CPF-funded Broadband Construction Program, which was supplemented by funding raised by individual communities and network opera

Comcast is footing most of the bill for a $55 million broadband network buildout in Indiana for which the company also won funding from the state. The state of Indiana awarded Comcast several grants totaling about $9.4 million to cover some of the costs of the buildout in June. The remaining $45 million-plus will be covered by Comcast, the company spokesperson confirmed.  That’s around 83 percent of total project costs.