National Telecommunications and Information Administration

BroadbandOhio has drafted Volume 1 of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Initial Proposal including: identification of existing broadband efforts, existing unserved and underserved locations, and community anchor institutions as well its detailed challenge process plan.

When it comes to connecting residents to broadband, counties need to speak up with detailed information about their unserved and underserved areas and work closely with their state broadband directors to get their fair share of federal dollars. “Get involved — go to your state broadband director – get to know them,” said Luis Acuña, Southwest regional director for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). “They can weave your needs into their plan.

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.

In a Full Committee markup, the House Commerce Committee advanced six bills including:

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.

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.

The world is facing a pressing need for a skilled workforce that can meet the demands of the 21st-century economy. That’s where workforce development comes in. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has created the Telecommunications Training and Workforce Development Best Practice Checklist to help support Eligible Entities as they’re developing their Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) workforce plans. Verizon and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) have collective bargaining agreements in place that, among other things, provide for high-

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced the availability of nearly $1 billion in funding to expand Internet access and adoption on Tribal Lands. This second round of funding from the Internet for All initiative’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) will make up to approximately $980 million available for Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities for the deployment of Internet infras

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) presented a draft five-year plan to connect the state’s unserved with broadband using the $1.86 billion it received through the federal government’s Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. But the CPUC’s plan comes with a warning that the total $4 billion available in state and federal broadband funding won't be enough to completely bridge the digital divide in California. There is a significant need for broadband across all of California, said the Wireless Internet Service Provider Association’s (WISPA) state advocacy manag