The remote islands of San Juan County, Washington are increasingly being served with next-generation fiber and wireless thanks to Rock Island Communications (RIC), a locally-owned Internet subsidiary of the Orcas Power & Light Cooperative (OPALCO).

Part of a member-owned, cooperative utility that’s been providing electricity to the county since 1937 – RIC is celebrating a decade of what it calls “remarkable growth” for the tall task of remote island deployments to the county of 18,000.

The subsidiary says it just reached 7,000 subscribers across San Juan County, and that its annual revenue has grown dramatically during the last decade – from approximately $1.8 million in 2015 to more than $12.3 million in 2025.

“Over the past decade, Rock Island has also achieved several important financial milestones that demonstrate the success of OPALCO’s long-term vision,” OPALCO’s Krista Bouchey says of the expansion. “The company became cash-flow positive in 2020, and in 2023 and 2024 achieved positive net income, marking a major turning point after years of investing in infrastructure and growing its subscriber base.”

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The San Juan Islands are clustered in the most northwest tip of Washington state, off the coast of the cities of Bellingham and Anacortes, not far from the Canadian border. A little more than a third of the residents of the 20 islands are seasonal, and the lion’s share of the territory is only accessible by ferry.

With tax day as a backdrop, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) convened its quarterly Building for Digital Equity (B4DE) livestream yesterday that shined a light on how public dollars and tax policy intersect with digital equity.

The event – an ongoing series sponsored by UTOPIA Fiber – brought together community organizers, policy experts, and local government leaders on the frontlines of working to expand opportunities for those being left in the digital dust.

What set yesterday's B4DE apart was its featured focus on how the emergence of AI hyperscale data centers are impacting communities and how communities can fight for a better deal.

The Data Center Boom — and Its Costs

MediaJustice Senior Campaign Lead Brandon Forester and Jordana Barton-García, Connect Humanity Director of the Texas Rio Grande Valley Broadband Coalition, heated up the afternoon’s fireside chat with an unflinching look at the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure.

Forester was direct about what's really driving the surge: “The only idea they have left is scale” and warned that data center developers often arrive in communities – particularly in the South –  promising economic benefits that rarely deliver. “They just need your space, they need your resources, and they need you just to let them do what they want to do,” he said.

Forester pushed back on the idea that data centers generate meaningful local tax revenue, noting how in Prince George's County, Maryland, where he lives, the projected annual return from a single data center amounts to roughly $6 million after state tax breaks, which are a fraction of what communities are led to expect.

Barton-García emphasized how communities have more power than they realize – but only if they act early. Her core message: get to the negotiating table before the deal is done.

The Trump administration continues to give muddled guidance in terms of the whopping $21 billion in “non-deployment” funds states should have at their disposal from the “savings” created by unwelcome changes to the federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment) program.

As we noted last month, dramatic, unpopular, and unlawful changes to BEAD by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) have resulted in infighting and delays, after the Trump administration tried to steer billions in taxpayer funds to slower and more congested satellite broadband networks owned by the President’s biggest donors.

The broadly-criticized shift was sold as a new “benefit of the bargain” program necessary to “cut costs.” The change required that all 56 BEAD eligible states and territories complete a “benefit of the bargain” round of subgrantee selection and completely retool their broadband deployment plans – often at significant cost to states.

As Americans file their taxes this Tax Day, digital equity leaders across the nation will gather for a timely exploration of how public dollars are being used to strengthen communities – and how local advocates can negotiate better deals as AI data centers rapidly expand, lured with tax breaks.

Co-hosted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), the next Building for Digital Equity (B4DE) livestream promises to offer insights from frontline forces working to ensure broadband and technology investments serve public needs rather than distant corporate interests.

With the series sponsored by UTOPIA Fiber, the upcoming B4DE livestream – “Local Dollars, Local Solutions: Digital Equity Tax Money & How to Negotiate Better AI Data Center Deals” – is slated for April 15 at 3 p.m. ET and will bring together national policy experts, local leaders, and community advocates working in the trenches of digital inclusion.

Registration is now open here.

“Tax day should serve as a reminder that public money should work for the public,” organizers said. 

“Communities are asking how to use their tax dollars to expand access to the Internet, digital skills, and devices – and how to effectively negotiate, or in some cases, stop data center developers from harming or extracting wealth from cities and towns without public benefit.”

The agenda for the free event will include a brief framing conversation before kicking things off with a creative segment highlighting the power of artistic collaboration and community storytelling, underscoring how digital access supports cultural expression and civic life.

Vermont’s Communications Union Districts (CUDs), which were the subject of a 2024 ILSR report, continue to make steady inroads in delivering high-quality broadband access to long-neglected rural Vermont residents. 

That includes the Chittenden County Communication Union District (CCCUD), which recently announced the completion of a planned fiber extension into the heavily rural communities of Essex Town, Essex Junction, Jericho, Shelburne, Westford, and Williston.

The deployment was completed in partnership with Fidium Fiber, which says the expansion brought fiber optic connectivity to more than 1,900 homes and businesses across the six towns for the first time ever.

Users in these markets have the option of three tiers of service: a symmetrical 100 megabit per second (Mbps) tier for a promotional rate of $30 a month; a symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) tier for a promotional rate of $50 per month; and a symmetrical 2 Gbps option for a promotional rate of $60 per month. Those prices jump to $70, $110, and $125 per month when the promo period ends.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law today new legislation that aims to provide tens of thousands of low-income households in “The Land of Enchantment” an Internet lifeline similar to the now-expired federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

It makes the state the first to step up in the absence of federal action to support households that just can’t afford to pay for monthly service, and will directly support 173,000 households.

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Senate Bill 152 – first filed on January 26 of this year by State Sen. Michael Padilla, (D) Majority Whip – will update the state’s Rural Telecommunications Act and empower the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) to offer up to $30/month for qualified households to pay for Internet service.

The broadband bill, known as the Low-Income Telecommunications Assistance Program (LITAP), passed through the formal legislative session in high-speed fashion. It was first introduced at the end of January, passed by the House, and then the Senate by a 38-0 margin last Thursday (Feb. 12), making its way to the governor’s desk to be signed into law today. That’s a 25-day marathon from legislative start-to-finish.

Close to a 1,000 broadband-minded registrants attended yesterday’s listening session on how to spend an estimated $21 billion in “non-deployment” funds states should have at their disposal from the federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment) program.

Hosted by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA), the Commerce Department agency administering the program, the online listening session featured about 50 selected speakers. Most of those who spoke advocated using the money to tackle the array of non-infrastructure barriers to expand broadband (affordability, device distribution, and digital skills programs) – made all the more urgent in light of the Trump administration’s sudden “termination” of the Digital Equity Act last year.

Though it runs counter to the bipartisan infrastructure law that established the program, a handful of speakers actually suggested the funds simply be returned to the U.S. Treasury, presumably to “save taxpayer dollars.”

One speaker even tried to make the case that money Congress explicitly intended to address the nation’s massive digital divide should instead be given to Air Traffic Controllers.

Elon Musk’s Starlink is making new demands of states with an eye on eroding accountability and oversight, reheating concerns about whether spending big money on the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) network is the best possible use of taxpayer resources.

Last year, the Trump administration made revisions to NTIA rules surrounding the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, And Deployment (BEAD) program, demanding that states de-prioritize fiber and dole out significantly more money to LEO satellite providers – a move broadly seen as a personal gift to one of the President’s biggest financial donors.

This subsidy reward, slated to be at least $733 million to start, is money that in some cases is being redirected away from higher-capacity, more affordable local options like open access community-owned fiber networks.

The NTIA changes introduced significant new delays in a program already rife with them. The Trump administration’s threat to withhold grant awards from states that focus on affordability – and the high consumer costs, environmental impact, and capacity constraints of the LEO network – risks undermining BEAD’s promise of faster, more affordable access.

Standoff Orbits 'LEO participation' 

Last week, Broadband.io and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society obtained a copy of a letter Starlink parent company SpaceX sent to individual states, demanding freedom from state oversight and monitoring should they bungle installs or fail to deliver acceptable bandwidth.