National Telecommunications and Information Administration

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has accepted Texas’ Digital Equity plan. Using $3,110,150.00 from the State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program, Texas created a plan aimed at addressing disparities in digital access, skills and affordability across the state. 

One tactic that both private and public fiber companies are using to raise capital is to tap asset backed security (ABS), according to the analysts at TD Cowen. ABS is a type of financial investment that uses income-generating assets as collateral and is an alternative to other ways of raising capital, such as corporate bonds.

According to state broadband officials in Michigan, Vermont and Pennsylvania, the termination of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) could not only impact the 23 million households on the program, but also those who live in areas where broadband is being built out. In Michigan, for instance, the state wants to require broadband companies receiving grants under the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program to charge lower-income people no more than $30 a month.

At the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, our goal is to make sure important technologies—from broadband to spectrum to emerging innovations like AI—are developed in the service of people and progress. Today, there is no better example of that challenge than the conversation around machine learning and artificial intelligence. Responsible AI innovation can – and will – bring enormous benefits to people. It is going to transform every corner of our economy, from advances in medicine to precision agriculture.

Minnesota didn’t wait for the federal government’s help to make funding available for rural broadband deployments. The state’s Border to Border program is often cited as a model for rural broadband funding.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced 30 new “categorical exclusions” established to support National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for broadband infrastructure deployments funded by the Internet for All programs.

A private equity firm based in Canada may prevent a lot of rural US Midwesterners from getting fiber broadband. But that’s OK with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) because it’s all perfectly legal. Mercury Broadband, which is majority owned by the private equity firm Northleaf Capital Partners, has claimed it covers vast swathes of Michigan, Kansas and Indiana with its fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband service.

Over a quarter of states are expected to be able to have enough Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding to get broadband to all their unserved and underserved areas and still have money left. At the other end of the spectrum, some states are struggling to meet national goals of making broadband available to everyone and to deploy fiber to the maximum extent possible.

On March 29, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) published a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program.

The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program is poised to "provide a material stimulus" to broadband service operators with respect to government-subsidized footprint expansion, but the "dollars will flow later than originally expected," a top policy analyst predicts. It's unlikely that a "significant number" of BEAD-funded networks will become operational in 2025, New Street Research's Blair Levin explained in a