Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

Open access network operator Underline is launching what Founder and CEO Bob Thompson calls the “most generous” Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) offering in the US. Multiple broadband providers have what Thompson calls “net zero” ACP offerings that have a price tag of $30, enabling qualifying households to get free service when the ACP benefit is applied.

Digital equity—or, digital opportunity, if you prefer—is having a moment. The US is making an unprecedented investment to ensure that individuals and communities have the capacity to fully participate in our society and economy. This is a huge undertaking with momentous implications on the future of the Nation. Each state has been asked to envision how life there can be transformed by achieving digital equity.

As states draft their initial proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is striving to help broadband offices tackle the cybersecurity aspect of the BEAD guidelines. Essentially, states must verify the vendors and suppliers to whom they award contracts have “adequate” cybersecurity and supply chain risk management (C/SCRM) plans.

A small coalition of internet service providers (ISP), broadband associations, and digital equity advocates is emerging to warn that a requirement for service providers to provide a letter of credit in order to participate in the federal government's Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program will "shut out a huge number of ISPs." The $42 billion BEAD program requires grant recipients to provide a letter of credit for 25% of the award, in addition to a 25% match requirement.

Charter has now won $700 million in broadband funding since its big win in the 2018 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, said Jessica Fischer, the company’s chief financial officer. The funding will go toward buildouts to 300,000 locations, Fischer said. The gross cost of the buildouts for which Charter has won funding will be $1.7 billion, which suggests that Charter will contribute matching funds of about $1 billion for the builds. The buildout cost per passing to Charter will be $3,200, Fischer said. The company completed 68,000 subsidized rural passings this quarter, she noted

The No Home Left Offline Coalition has written to all 50 state governors, urging them to contact their congressional delegation to take action on renewing the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

Millions of dollars are coming into Mississippi to get more families connected to high-speed internet. But there are still major gaps in the broadband coverage map. “We had the little Wi-Fi hotspot. But in order to use the Wi-Fi hotspot, you have to have a cell phone signal. And a lot of times we didn’t have a good cell phone signal where we were. So, it just washed everything completely out.

When Texas was awarded $3.3 billion in federal money toward expanding broadband infrastructure across the state, government leaders and telecommunication companies celebrated the news. With the federal funds, coupled with $1.5 billion from the state’s wallet, rural and underserved Texas communities finally saw a chance to catch up with technology in the rest of the country.

State and federal programs have improved the availability of high-speed internet, but cost remains the primary barrier to broadband adoption for low-income households. To address this, the federal government has created consumer subsidies, such as those included in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), to ease cost burdens.

While we recently broke down Montana's Draft Digital Opportunity Plan and the state's vision of digital equity, the Montana Broadband Office (MBO) has also made public its draft Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program Five-Year Action Plan.