Digital Divide

While Indiana continues to battle the digital divide–the gap between those who have and don’t have broadband access–there are significant signs of progress. State and federal funds totaling nearly $1.5 billion are being deployed to help connect the estimated 150,000 unserved or underserved Hoosier addresses. Private sector companies are also getting engaged, including AT&T, which is in the midst of fiber projects in 12 Indiana communities and regions, and it’s all part of what some are calling a once in a generation opportunity.

The Maine Connectivity Resource Exchange is Maine Connectivity Authority's home to resources and knowledge to support, enable, and empower municipal and Tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, subgrantees, and the public on all aspects of the broadband ecosystem in Maine. The first module is in support of the upcoming BEAD State-Led Challenge Process. This module contains 7 units that will work to guide our partners through this several months-long process.

The Fiscal Year 2024 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act provides $26.228 billion in total funding. The bill would provide $169,959,000 for US Department of Agriculture broadband programs including:

• $40 million for Distance learning and telemedicine (DLT) grants
• $9.6 million for Congressionally Directed Spending/earmarked DLT grants
• $90 million for ReConnect Loans and Grants
• $10.4 million for Reconnect earmarks
• $20 million for Community Connect Grants 

The Fiscal Year 2024 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) Appropriations Act provides a total of $68.537 billion in discretionary funding.  The bill provides $10.8 billion for the Department of Commerce.

The Department of Commerce's Inspector General asked industry stakeholders to identify challenges they are facing with broadband programmatic deployment to unserved and underserved locations.

From all over the country, I’m hearing stories about internet service providers who are gaming the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) broadband maps in order to block areas from being eligible for the BEAD grants. It’s relatively easy for a provider to do this. All that’s needed is to declare the capability to deliver a speed of 100/20 Mbps in the FCC maps. Providers can largely do this with impunity. The archaic FCC rules allow providers to claim ‘up-to’ marketing speeds in the maps.

California's Broadband Loan Loss Reserve Fund is a $500 million fund that provides a credit enhancement related to the financing of local broadband infrastructure development. The reserve fund expands the ability of local governments, tribes and non-profits to secure financing for building last-mile projects, with an emphasis on public broadband networks. The Fund will provide collateral to local governments to enable more favorable borrowing rates and terms for bonds issued to deploy broadband infrastructure. The Fund was established in 2021. The benefits of the Fund include:

At least 13 states intend to undertake “nondeployment” projects as part of their funding under the $42.5-billion BEAD program, according to their initial proposals. The number of states that expect money left over after allocating funds for all unserved and underserved locations could be higher, and perhaps considerably so.

Elaina Zempel, manager of the Wyoming broadband office, laments that the office didn’t have more funds to distribute in its recent Capital Projects Fund (CPF) program, which awarded funding to network operators to cover some of the costs of deploying broadband to 15,000 unserved and underserved locations. Fortunately, NTIA allocated $347.9 million in rural broadband funding to Wyoming for the BEAD rural broadband funding program, so there is still an opportunity to fund many of the failed requests from Wyoming’s 

The Federal Communications Commission formally notified Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) providers that, due to a lack of additional funding from Congress, the agency will only be able to fully fund the program through the month of April. The Public Notice also (1) provides guidance on the May 2024 partial reimbursement month; (2) reminds participating providers of the notices they must send to ACP households; and (3) provides guidance on the consumer protections for ACP households during wind-down and after the ACP ends.