News

The Vermont Community Broadband Board this week unanimously approved the creation of a new “long drop program” to bring fiber service to low income households. The new program will use $2.5 million in leftover federal Rescue Plan funds to subsidize the cost of connecting low-income households in high-cost locations.

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has announced that the District is poised to use $61.3 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to “support the construction of community facilities” and expand affordable broadband to underserved communities.

With Digital Inclusion Week 2024 only a month away, registration is open for the next Building for Digital Equity livestream event on October 7. The theme will be “Coalition Building for Success” and will bring together hundreds of frontline digital inclusion practitioners from across the nation to delve into how coalitions are finding success in pushing the digital equity movement forward

Harrison County, Texas officials say they’re poised to use the county’s remaining Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds to strike a fiber expansion partnership with Etex Communications, a subsidiary of the locally-owned Etex Telephone Cooperative. The Harrison County Commissioners Court says it’s putting the finishing touches on a $4.5 million public-public partnership with Etex that will help deliver fiber access to the Western end of the heavily underserved Texas county with the help of $1.5 million in federal ARPA funds.

Public Knowledge announces 21st Annual IP3 Award Winners. Among the four recipients is Angela Siefer, Executive Director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), recognizing her as a national leader of the digital equity movement.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has announced another $237 million in new grants that will help fund broadband expansion across 21 different California towns, cities, counties, and tribal communities. Alpine, Mono, Nevada, Placer, Santa Barbara, and Tulare counties are among the latest winners in California’s $2 billion Last Mile Federal Funding Account Grant Program (FFA), an extension of California’s ambitious Broadband For All initiative, a $6 billion effort aimed at dramatically boosting broadband competition and access across the Golden State.

Jordan Pittman, Digital Equity Coordinator with ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, will join digital inclusion advocates in Atlanta this week for "Elevating Local Voices To Drive Impact on Digital Equity" event.

The northern Minnesota telephone cooperative, which serves 30,000 members across its 6,000-square-mile service area, has announced it is returning over $3 million to its members this year. This most recent payout isn’t Paul Bunyan Communications first, or largest. In 2022, members were returned $6.3 million and in 2018 it was $2.2 million.

Communities looking to leverage American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for broadband or other local infrastructure need to act soon or risk losing access to a once-in-a-generation funding resource. Most ARPA recipients seem well aware of the deadline, but data suggests more than a few communities could drop the ball.

The Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA) has unveiled $9.6 million in new grant awards to help bring affordable fiber to over 15,000 homes and businesses across 12 widely underserved communities in the Pine Tree state. The grants will primarily be focused on leveraging public-private partnerships to drive fiber into unserved locations in Waldo and Lincoln Counties.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) has announced a new initiative, Seven Star Communities, to highlight the excellent work being done by Native communities to “strengthen self-determination and close the digital divide through sustainable digital inclusion work.” Increasingly, Native nations are advancing digital inclusion priorities and programs that foreground self-determination and sovereignty.

Oakland, California will use ARPA grant funds to construct a city-owned, open-access, hybrid middle mile/last mile fiber network that will support the city housing authority's “Free Internet Initiative.” The Oakland project not only paves the way for the city to connect 14 community anchor institutions (CAIs) and nine public safety buildings, it will also expand high-speed Internet access to thousands of unserved and underserved addresses in West and East Oakland.

The New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE) has awarded $1.4 million in grants to 15 counties, tribal communities, cooperatives, and municipalities for planning, engineering and grant writing to expand broadband access. The funding not only allows these communities to begin analyzing their local connectivity needs in more detail, it potentially opens the door to helping them apply for more than $675 million in BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Development) grants.

Fort Collins, Colorado's award-winning municipal fiber network is celebrating its growth by giving away a year of free Internet access to 20 randomly chosen subscribers. Buoyed by its successes, Fort Collins has since started striking intergovernmental agreements with unserved neighboring communities in Larimer County in a bid to further extend affordable access to locals long-neglected by regional monopolies.

With the Federal Communications Commission preparing a biennial report to Congress assessing competition in communications, some industry stakeholders have voiced concern over the growing dominance of a few major players.

As Brownsville, Texas continues to make progress on an ambitious revitalization initiative, it is now transforming the digital landscape along the border with a citywide fiber network to bring fast, reliable, and affordable Internet service to its nearly 200,000 residents. The effort is being launched on the back of a city-owned middle mile fiber backbone and a partnership with Lit Fiber to build out last mile service, operating as Lit Fiber BTX.

ILSR's Senior GIS Analyst Christine Parker will be flying into Seattle, Washington this week to join a breakout session at the annual gathering of open source data scientists.

EMPOWER Broadband, a subsidiary of Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative, is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to waive financing requirements attached to the provider’s takeover of thousands of subsidized broadband locations from RiverStreet Networks. It’s a move the cooperative says will save it millions of dollars in errant additional penalties and puts a spotlight on the ongoing challenges facing a program that has long been criticized for dysfunction and mismanagement.

In the latest episode of the Building for Digital Equity Podcast, ILSR's Digital Equity Coordinator Jordan Pittman sits down with advocates from the Reproductive Health Initiative for Telehealth Equity and Solutions (RHITES) to discuss the importance of addressing barriers to telehealth.

On July 24, 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 9-7 that the Universal Service Fund is unconstitutional. The decision throws a whole raft of federal broadband programs - including those which help schools pay for connectivity, those which help homes pay for home Internet access, and more - into a state of uncertainty.