Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program

How much broadband will Americans get for the $75 billion that Congress committed in 2021? That’s enough money to equip an additional 17 million households with broadband, taking the US to 99 percent broadband coverage, according to a Federal Communications Commission staff paper and data from the Census Bureau.

A federal effort to map out and better understand who in America has decent internet and who does not is already getting challenged by those in the know, including the Colorado Broadband Office, which has submitted 13,000 challenges of the data. The map is just two weeks old. And the state isn’t done challenging the data collected by the Federal Communications Commission, said Brandy Reitter, executive director of the state’s broadband office. “Thirteen thousand is a lot but likely doesn’t include all missing locations,” Reitter said.

The 117th Congress is nearing its end. There are still several broadband policy issues and related matters for Congress to sort out. Meanwhile, the current Congress has few working days left in 2022—and still needs to pass a budget for 2023—and it's unclear how much legislation will reach President Biden's desk when Republicans gain the House majority in January. Here are two policy matters to watch for the remaining days of this Congress:

I added US territories as recipients of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) allocation dollars based on their number of unserved locations in addition to the minimum fixed allocation (see). The upshot is Puerto Rico has 212,70 unserved locations, 18% of its total, and an estimated $874 million allocation, which is significant. The other territories don’t change the numbers materially because we don’t see them as having unserved locations.

With $37 billion of the $42 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program based on the number of locations unserved by broadband, accurately measuring who is unserved is critical — both for the allocation of funds, but, more importantly, so people without access to real broadband can be connected.

US Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) and Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) led their Senate colleagues in a bipartisan letter to the Secretaries of the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce about the need to expand high-speed internet access in rural communities. Internet providers are required to obtain permits from the federal government when installing telecommunications infrastructure on federal lands or for projects using federal funding. Right now, they face extensive delays in the permitting process.

On December 1, 2022, the U.S. Treasury approved Missouri’s plan to dedicate all of its Capital Projects Fund allocation to extend the reach of broadband in the state. Agriculture is Missouri’s leading economic driver. Over 95,000 farms employ nearly 400,000 people, export more than $2.5 billion across the globe, and make economic contributions to the state of $88.4 billion. Missouri is second in the number of farms in the United States and ranks in the top 10 nationally for the production of eleven different agricultural products.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Hawaii received its first “Internet for All” grants for deploying high-speed Internet networks and developing digital skills training programs under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative.

With just over a month remaining until the Federal Communications Commission's deadline for broadband map challenges, the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition is raising concerns over how the map displays community anchor institutions (CAIs) and is asking the FCC to revise its process.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Mississippi received its first “Internet for All” grants for deploying high-speed Internet networks and developing digital skills training programs under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative. Mississippi is receiving $5,875,585.61 in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President Biden, to plan for the deployment and adoption of affordable, equitable, and reliable high-speed Internet service throughout the state.