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Oregon’s Coos-Curry Cooperative Passes 5000th Fiber Customer Milestone
Oregon’s Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative just connected its 5,000th customer, marking a major milestone in the Oregon cooperative’s five-year-effort to bring affordable fiber access to rural state residents long stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide. The recent celebration of the milestone featured a homeowner whose recent fiber connection came 80 years after the same cooperative first connected the home for electrical service.
SAVE THE DATE: Next #B4DE Celebrates Digital Opportunity In The Face of Challenges
The next Building For Digital Equity (#B4DE) livestream will be centered around the theme: “Wired for Freedom: Digital Access and the American Dream.” The agenda is shaping up to offer attendees new battlefield intelligence and how community-centered organizations and coalitions are carrying on in the face of vital funding and programming cuts.
“Cruel” E-Rate Rollback Harms Broadband Expansion Plans
Congressional Republicans are moving forward on a plan to kill a popular Federal Communications Commission (FCC) program providing free Wi-Fi to schoolchildren. Critics of the repeal say it’s a “cruel” effort that will undermine initiatives to bridge the affordability and access gap for families long stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.
Pushback Mounts Over Trump Administration ‘Termination’ of Digital Equity Law
The Trump administration’s dismantling of a popular broadband grant program has been greeted with disgust and anger by those working to bridge the digital divide, leaving many states' planned broadband expansions in limbo, and affordable broadband advocates contemplating potential legal action. The unprecedented choice to destroy digital skills training and broadband adoption programs created by an act of Congress is seeing escalating pushback by a growing coalition of frustrated lawmakers and state broadband offices.
Longmont NextLight’s Affordability Program Picks Up Federal Slack For Low Income Locals
NextLight's locally-funded Internet Assistance Program is currently helping 14 percent more city subscribers than the federal Affordable Connectivity Program did at its peak. At the time the ACP was discontinued, 906 NextLight customers were receiving the federal discount. As of April 2025, NextLight’s own assistance program is helping 1,034 customers – a 14 percent increase in one year.
Crews Begin Work On Ft. Bragg, California’s Long-Awaited Muni-Fiber Network
Construction crews have begun work on Fort Bragg’s long-awaited municipal fiber network, which will ultimately bring affordable fiber to the California city of 7,000. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $17 million. Of that, $10 million will be paid for by a Federal Funding Account (FFA) grant from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)
New Resource: Community Networks in California’s Federal Funding Account Broadband Grant Program
Today we are releasing a new two-part dashboard based on California Public Utilities Commission data that helps visualize the success of community-based broadband projects under the state's transformative The Last-Mile Federal Funding Account program. The map visualizes the relative size of grant amounts per county and the percentage of those grants that went to community networks, in which we group municipal or other public entities, Tribal governments, cooperatives, and nonprofits.
Grays Harbor PUD Gets To Work On Western WA Fiber Expansion
Grays Harbor PUD says it’s getting to work leveraging a $7 million grant from the Washington State Broadband Office to expand affordable fiber access in the South Elma, Porter, and Cedarville areas of the Evergreen State. Grays Harbor PUD was one of 16 Washington utilities chosen by the Washington State Broadband Office to receive grant funding during awards first announced back in 2023.
Digital Inclusion Leaders Brace for Impact
Digital inclusion organizations are reeling after the Trump administration announced the Digital Equity Act, embedded in the bipartisan infrastructure law, was being cancelled months after federal grants had already been reviewed and awarded. As news began to trickle out, many of those working on these issues across the nation had more questions than answers as they scrambled to process a mix of confusion and frustration, especially mindful of the fact that the Digital Equity Act barely touches on the subject of race.
Timnath, Colorado Lights Up First Fiber Customer
Timnath, Colorado's new municipal network has announced they’ve lit up their very first subscriber in partnership with the city of Loveland’s Pulse Fiber municipal broadband network. Inspired by Pulse, the Town of Timnath entered into an intergovernmental revenue-sharing agreement with Loveland’s ISP in August of 2023. Tinmath receives 25 percent of the network’s gross income, with an expected 2 to 6 percent return on capital investment over 20 to 30 years. The network is expected to be paid off in 25 years.
AAPB and ILSR Prepare For Inaugural ‘Future of Public Broadband’ Conference
Some of the nation’s leading voices, thinkers, and doers in the community broadband sector will connect and collaborate in the nation’s capital for the inaugural "Community First: The Future of Public Broadband Conference and Hill Day" next week. The two-day conference – slated for May 14 and 15 – is being hosted by the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB) and New America Open Technology Institute (OTI), in partnership with the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, and the Community Broadband Action Network.
Massachusetts Lawmakers Hold Hearing Today on Affordable Broadband Bill
Legislation that would require ISPs operating in Massachusetts to offer qualifying low-income households high-speed Internet service for $15 per month is set to have its first legislative hearing today. The hearing in Massachusetts comes as similar legislation is being considered by state lawmakers in Vermont and California – all three of which are modeled on New York’s Affordable Broadband Act.