Infrastructure

Reps Kat Cammack (R-FL) and Doris Matsui (D-CA) introduced the Deploying Infrastructure with Greater Internet Transactions and Legacy Applications Act (DIGITAL Applications Act). The bill establishes online portals for the acceptance, processing, and disposal of a Form 299 for communications use authorizations at the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture. Form 299s are used for permitting related to communications technology. 

US cable operators have been struggling to regain their footing in broadband as they try to grow subscribers again in the midst of an array of pressures including fiber and fixed wireless access competition, a slow housing move market and the impact of the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program. Several US cable operators are responding by leaning into convergence.

The fate of a $24.5 million broadband project in Minnesota came down to one vote at a City Council meeting. Seven council members faced a choice: forge ahead with an ambitious plan to build a city-owned municipal broadband network, or heed a last-minute request from telecommunications giant Charter Communications to pause the project.

The United States Department of Agriculture released a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Community Connect Grant Program for fiscal year 2025. The USDA’s Rural Utilities Service estimates that approximately $26 million in grants will be available to eligible applicants this year. The Community Connect Grant Program offers financial support to qualified applicants that will deliver broadband services at or above the grant’s specified speed to all premises in rural, economically challenged communities that lack internet access.

In the final days of the 118th Congress, two new broadband bills were passed and eventually signed into law by then-President Joe Biden. Here's a quick look at the E-BRIDGE Act and the EXPLORE Act. The new laws demonstrate how Congress understands how important broadband is to economic development and that broadband is needed everywhere—even the places we go to 'get away from it all.' 

The Trump administration will overhaul a $42 billion federal grant program aimed at expanding high-speed internet to the nation, including easing some rules that could benefit Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink. The program will be revamped to “take a tech-neutral approach” in its distribution of funds to states, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced that his department is “ripping out” the “pointless requirements” inserted by former President Joe Biden into a major broadband program that is set to deliver high-speed internet to millions of Americans. Some broadband analysts have shared Lutnick’s frustration with the requirements in BEAD, which has been in planning and contracting for three years.

Rep Richard Hudson (R-NC), who serves as the Chairman of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led Republican members of the subcommittee in introducing the 

Rep Stacy Plaskett (D-VI) and Rep Russ Fulcher (R-ID) reintroduced legislation (H.R.3385) to request an assessment of the value, cost, and feasibility of developing a Trans-Atlantic submarine fiber optic cable that will connect the East coast of the United States, via the United States Virgin Islands, with Nigeria and Ghana. Presently, there is no direct fiber optic link between the US and the continent of Africa.

It looks like Elon Musk’s Starlink service is going to get a big boost from the U.S. government. States will be able to award more Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funds to satellite-internet providers like Starlink, as well as to more fixed wireless access (FWA) providers, rather than mainly to companies that lay fiber-optic cables. Personally, I think it will be a shame to squander this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reach as many homes as possible with fiber via the $42.5 billion in BEAD funds.