Community Anchor Institutions

The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe recently was awarded an $18.7 million broadband grant courtesy of the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA.) The grant comes from  NTIA’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. Leech Lake was one of only two Tribes to be a recipient of the program’s new grants, totaling more than $36 million.

Federal Communications Commissioner Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said that using the E-rate program to subsidize mobile hotspot devices is a “great idea” and that there may be some activity on that front in the future. The chairwoman was fielding a comment from a mayor of a Texas city, who said that his jurisdiction has a program that lends out connectivity hubs – allowing others to connect to the device – in parts of the town for residents seeking internet. He asked whether that’s something that the FCC could fund.

Arlington County, Virginia, is surveying residents and businesses to understand how they use broadband internet service and if their access can be improved. The survey is part of a $250,000 study that could inform ways to bridge the digital divide between residents with good internet connectivity and those without it, using the county’s existing fiber-optic network, dubbed ConnectArlington.

As part of his $45 billion Rebuild Illinois investment strategy, Governor JB Pritzker (D-IL) launched a statewide initiative, Connect Illinois, in August 2019 to expand broadband access across the entire state.

The Federal Communications Commission committed over $34 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program (ECP), which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Massachusetts 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.

When Jase Wilson with Broadband Money reached out to share that he was convening a gathering of broadband leaders in Florida to have some off-the-record conversations about funding, state activity, challenges, and opportunities and asked me to be around the table, it was hard to say no. From state broadband office leaders to community leaders to a few policymakers and interested parties, the conversations were fast-paced and ran the gamut from technology to deployment to sustainability of networks to the role that anchor institutions play in the mix. We also all committed to Chatham House r

GeoLinks took home $84.6 million of the $234.9 million it won in the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction for broadband projects in Arizona and Nevada. While its top priority is ramping up those fiber and fixed wireless builds, company President Ryan Adams said it's also keeping its eyes peeled for expansion opportunities from the Southwest to the East Coast which could help it scale over the next decade.

The Federal Communications Commission is committing over $65 million in new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program (ECP), which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.