Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

Workforce and waivers. Those were two of the key themes and indeed the potential stumbling blocks for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program deployments, said TIA CEO Dave Stehlin. Now that the US government has issued a waiver for its Middle Mile grant program, the prospect of forthcoming relief for the BEAD program seems more promising. The waivers in question relate to Buy American requirements associated with the Middle Mile and BEAD programs.

Democratic officials are expressing concern that the House Republican debt limit plan would undermine bipartisan efforts to boost internet access nationwide and secure U.S.

The Commerce Department is hard at work. Thanks to major investments like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the CHIPS and Science Act, and your support through the appropriations process, the Commerce Department is making substantial progress on some of our nation’s most pressing economic and national security priorities, including those related to our supply chains, manufacturing, innovation, and workforce. The Department must maintain sufficient oversight of the grants it makes.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded grants totaling $5,841,477.13 to 12 Tribes as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP). In the next few months, NTIA will release a second Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for an additional round of funding from the TBCP program.  The Tribes awarded are:

Recently, a wireless company published a study about the cost to reach all the Unserved and Underserved. They estimated we need $307 billion to reach everyone. Generally, they make a case that the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program will run out of money, so the federal government should settle for wireless technology.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is proposing to issue 1) a Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program Challenge Process Policy Notice to provide Eligible Entities with additional guidance on how to design and conduct their BEAD challenge process and 2) A BEAD Model Challenge Process to provide Eligible Entities.

The Federal Communications Commission is required by statute to assess the deployment of broadband across the US.  Although not explicitly required to do so, FCC uses its discretion to set a minimum fixed broadband speed that it uses as a benchmark.

The federal government is missing a crucial link in its plan to greatly expand access to high-speed internet service in rural America: enough workers to get the job done. Fiber splicers—the workers who install, maintain and repair wired broadband networks—are in short supply. “We’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off,” says Jason Jolly, chief executive of Fiberscope LLC, a Sullivan (MO)-based company that does contracted fiber-splicing work.

Lingering concerns about whether money from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program will be used to fund overbuilds of other government-subsidized projects flared up again recently. Concerns seemed to center on what BEAD will mean for those receiving funding from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program.

In a mad scramble to verify a map that will be used to determine Colorado’s share of federal broadband funding, state officials trying to meet a Jan. 13, 2023 deadline made nearly 15,000 challenges in three weeks. The majority were accepted. Of those, about 13,000 were submitted for incorrect addresses, the wrong number of units in a building, and other inaccurate information. So far, 6,700 location challenges were accepted.