Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program

Broadband experts are condemning an amendment to Ohio’s latest budget bill that restricts fixed wireless access (FWA) grants with claims that it could curb the state’s efforts to bridge the digital divide. Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) signed the bill without vetoing the amendment which means FWA grants from the state will now only be considered in “extremely high-cost” areas of Ohio. Mike Wendy of the Wireless Internet Service Provider Association (WISPA) said Ohio State Senator Rob McColley (R-OH) proposed the amendment to the budget bill, “ostensibly grounded in his belief that only fiber

President Biden’s economic agenda—Bidenomics—is growing the American economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. And if most South Carolina Republican Members of Congress had their way, the state would have lost out on over $2.6 billion in infrastructure funding and nearly $1 billion in funding for high-speed internet for South Carolina. Nearly $1 billion in funds were awarded to South Carolina to deliver affordable, high-speed internet to every South Carolinian under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), using Made in America material.

President Joe Biden announced that his administration would spend more than $42 billion to expand high-speed internet access across the US. The White House estimates the program will help over 8.5 million households and small businesses.

As they begin a comprehensive effort to convince the country that “Bidenomics” is working, President Joe Biden and his allies are gleefully needling Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) for celebrating Alabama’s receipt of federal funds to expand rural access to high-speed internet, money that came from a bill President Biden signed and Sen Tuberville, like most Republicans, voted against. It’s not an uncommon story these days; the administration is spreading a huge amount of federal funding around the cou

AT&T and Charter Communications are best positioned to benefit from the multi-billion-dollar Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program based on state-by-state allocations and the presence of each operator in those states, reckon analysts that have broken down the numbers. "The larger the presence an operator has in a state with a sizable allocation of BEAD funding, the greater the opportunity there is for it to see benefits from a build-out near its existing footprint and fill-in additional pockets across its DMAs [designated market areas] with edge-outs," the analysts at IS

The Vermont Community Broadband Board announced that the state will receive $229 million in federal funding from a White House initiative to expand high-speed broadband access. That figure is some $50 million more than state officials had anticipated — good news for the effort to wire up rural Vermont. In the lead-up to the announcement, officials worried that Vermont would get too small a piece of the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program pie.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance) on December 26, 2013, which consolidated eight existing Federal circulars into a single guidance document. The Uniform Guidance streamlined and eased administrative burdens across the Federal Government in the administration of Federal financial assistance programs, thus increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of Federal awards, while also strengthening oversight over Federal funds to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) beat its June 30 deadline to announce the amounts it will award each state through its $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, but now the clock is ticking as states and broadband service providers await another milestone.

There are about 8.5 million locations in America that lack access to quality service. In Virginia, there are more than 360,000 locations that are unserved or underserved. Each of those locations represents a generations-old farm that can’t harvest using modern tools, a fledgling small business stuck in an analog era, a working class family cut off from vital telehealth care, or a young student missing out on lifechanging opportunities that the digital world can provide. But as of this week, that all changes.

[The National Telecommunications and Information Administration] just announced the amounts each state and territory will receive from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. That includes $813 million for Tennessee to build future-proof networks to connect everyone in the state. Our task is simple, but it’s monumental: we are going to bridge the digital divide. For good. But we cannot reach that goal without industry stepping up.