In the last two months of the Biden administration, nearly $500 million in grants were announced to support Tribal broadband projects. From Alaska to Virginia, 55 Tribal nations were poised to improve Internet access and advance digital sovereignty in their communities.

As President Trump took office, more than a hundred applicants still awaited word on their proposals, with nearly $500 million still available in the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP).

Then, silence. Ten months of silence.

In early November, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) sent a letter to NTIA officials asking about the TBCP. The program was established with two appropriations totaling nearly $3 billion. The first round of TBCP grants rolled out throughout 2022 and 2023, totalling nearly $100 million in use and adoption funding and over $1.7 billion in planning or infrastructure funding.

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The $500 million announced at the end of the Biden administration was part of round two of the program, for which applications were due in March 2024. With about $1 billion available, only about half of the funding in round two had been allocated.

What was happening, the Senators asked, with the rest of that funding? There were other questions too.

For years, it’s been known as “America’s first Gig City,” thanks to its city-owned fiber network. 

That same infrastructure has positioned Chattanooga to potentially become the nation’s first “Quantum City,” according to a new economic impact analysis showing EPB Fiber and the utility's smart-grid systems has generated $5.3 billion in net community benefits for Hamilton County since 2011. 

The city is now poised to enter the Quantum realm.

The research builds on an earlier 10‑year return‑on‑investment analysis – published in August 2020 – that showed the city’s publicly-owned fiber network had delivered $2.69 billion in value over its first decade. 

The new follow-up study – From Gig City to Quantum City: The Value of Fiber Optic Infrastructure in Hamilton County, TN 2011-2035 – expands the time horizon and finds that over 15 years the total community benefit has grown to $5.3 billion, illuminating how the long‑term value of municipal broadband can really pay-off.

A Massive Economic Boost

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Conducted by researchers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the study finds that the municipal fiber network has dramatically reshaped the regional economy, supporting 10,420 jobs from 2011 to 2024 – about 31 percent of all net new jobs created locally over the past decade.

The return on investment has been extraordinary: the network has delivered 6.4 times the value of its original $396 million investment, the study indicates.

Traverse City, Michigan’s public, community-owned utility, Traverse City Light and Power (TCL&P), is putting the finishing touches on its $14 million plan to deliver affordable fiber to the community of 15,424. With build out estimates significantly lower than initial projections, the utility is finalizing an additional $1 million in loans to fund the recently started expansion project.

Already named last month to the 2025 Broadband Communities Top 100 list, a recent update by the city notes that the utility is currently extending the network to the Base of Old Mission Peninsula, Hastings, Parsons, Munson, and Barlow. 

Complete citywide deployment is expected by the Spring of 2026, though the city says it maintains a “stretch goal” of completing the entirety of the “rapid deployment” by this fall.

In deployed markets, locals have three speed and pricing options: a symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) tier for $90 a month; a symmetrical 500 megabit per second (Mbps) option for $70 a month; and a symmetrical 200 Mbps option for $60 a month.

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None of the options come with long-term contracts, hidden fees, or usage caps. All three broadband tiers can be bundled with phone service for an additional $10 a month.

Like countless U.S. communities, Traverse City locals were tired by expensive, spotty, substandard broadband access being provided by regional telecom monopolies. In Traverse City that usually means a monopoly on broadband access by Charter Spectrum, peppered with some scattered Brightspeed (formerly Lumen and Centurylink) DSL and fiber lines.

Antelope Valley, California officials are hoping to leverage California’s historic recent round of broadband grant programs to deliver affordable fiber access to a significant swath of long-underserved southern California desert communities.

According to Antelope Valley officials, they’ve applied for a $24.3 million California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) Broadband Infrastructure grant to help them deliver symmetrical 10 Gigabit Passive Optical Network (XGS-PON) technology to 988 total households, most of which would be seeing affordable fiber access for the first time ever.

A breakdown of the project included in the application submitted by the Antelope Valley Union High School District to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), indicates that the proposed project seeks to connect to the California State Middle Mile route at two points currently being negotiated in collaboration with state Middle Mile Authorities.

“The award will not be determined until approximately quarter two of next year,” Antelope Valley Union High School District Superintendent Greg Nehen tells ILSR.

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The Antelope Valley Broadband Project would be constructed with 100 percent underground fiber installation, with all fiber-optic cables placed in buried conduit within public rights-of-way, using underground microducts, handholes, and splice enclosures. No aerial deployment is planned for this project, according to project leaders.

Fort Collins, Colorado’s popular Connexion municipal broadband network has unveiled SmartHome, a new network management app that can help the ISPs customers better manage the security and bandwidth-consumption of their home networks.

SmartHome lets users see every connected device, set parental controls, prioritize bandwidth for work or entertainment, and guard against online threats through integrated security services like ExperienceIQ and ProtectIQ. The expanded new functionality is being bundled with the ISPs Enhanced 2-Gig and Premier 10-Gig plans.

Connexion currently offers locals three tiers of fiber service: a symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) option for $70 a month; a symmetrical 2 Gbps option for $100 a month; and a symmetrical 10 Gbps offering for $200 per month.

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Fort Collins, Colorado has repeatedly won awards for being a trailblazer in the municipal fiber space, and local subscribers continue to take notice. The city-owned and operated Connexion network operation just announced it has passed the 20,000 subscriber mark, after nabbing a significant new wave of state and federal funding for expansion early last year.

Fort Collins began thinking about a citywide fiber deployment as early as 2012. By 2015, locals had voted to exempt the city from a counterproductive state law restricting communities from building their own broadband networks.

Two city utility managers, an economist, and a fiber technologist walk into a virtual webinar …

And what followed was a deep dive into why delaying investment in smart city infrastructure is increasingly costly.

The hour-long livestream event  – co-hosted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) Community Broadband Networks initiative and the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB) – brought together municipal utility managers, an economist, and a leading fiber technologist to explore how cities can future-proof themselves with digital infrastructure.

Guests who appeared on “Building Smarter Cities and the Cost of Doing Nothing” today emphasized how “smart cities” are built on fiber networks and what city investments in the gold-standard of Internet connectivity can do to boost economic development while improving the quality of life for local residents and businesses.

They highlighted the real costs of inaction, pointing to slower economic growth and lost municipal revenue opportunities as something many cities or towns overlook when thinking about local infrastructure.

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The webinar featured Huntsville Utilities VP of Engineering Stacy Cantrell who provided key insights into the public-private partnership Huntsville Utilities struck with Google Fiber and what it has meant to “Rocket City.”

Another virtual case study was provided by Brieana Reed-Harmel, Broadband Manager for Pulse Fiber, discussing how the city’s fiber network is propelling economic revitalization efforts in Loveland and how the success of the network is now being extended into neighboring communities.

At the New Mexico Infrastructure Finance Conference last week, the Pueblo of Jemez Tribal community was honored with a Project Excellence Award for its broadband project, building out a fiber network to reach more than 670 unserved or underserved households, Tribal departments, programs, and businesses.

In presenting the award, Jeff Lopez, Director of the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE), highlighted the transformative work the Tribe has been doing since it received an $8.6 million grant for the $15 million project, courtesy of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in Nov. 2023.

In accepting the award on behalf of the work being done by the tribally-owned and operated Internet service provider known as JNET, Governor George Shendo Jr. of Jemez Pueblo, said in a statement:

“We are honored to be recognized by the Department of Finance and Administration for its inaugural broadband Project Excellence Award. We are excited to fully realize all the opportunities our broadband project will bring to current and future generations in Jemez and the surrounding communities.”

Since January of 2024, JNET has been constructing its fiber-to-the home (FTTH) network, building-out more than 45 miles of fiber to date. More than 40 homes have already been lit up for service with the project expected to be finished in 2026.

Decorah, Iowa has struck a public private partnership with West Union Trenching to deploy a modern fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network that passes every household in the city.

The project is the culmination of decades of planning and frustration at the lack of affordable, next-generation broadband in the city of 7,500.

According to the city, the Decorah 2025 Fiber to the Home Project will finally begin construction early next year.

The city has also struck a deal with Minnesota-based AcenTek to operate the system and provide retail internet service to residents. Network equipment and construction is being financed by a $13.7 million loan approved last month by the city’s Municipal Telecommunications Utility Board of Trustees.

“The fiber plant and electronics will be city owned, our operations side of it is being handled by Acentek,” Chopper Albert, Decorah IT Director told ISLR.

The first subscribers are expected to come online sometime in early 2027. The project’s origins extend back more than a decade after locals struggled to gain access to affordable, fast, and reliable broadband access.

“This is a unique start-up arrangement for Iowa,” said Travis Goedken, City Manager of the City of Decorah.  “After reviewing multiple business plan options since the successful election by Decorah residents in 2015 to establish a Board-governed municipal telecommunications utility, this was the most favorable option.

"City staff and the Municipal Telecommunications Utility Board have been working diligently the last two years to organize and execute the necessary steps to make this a reality.”

Superior, Wisconsin’s community-owned open access fiber network has gone live in its first two deployment neighborhoods, as the city works toward providing affordable next-generation fiber access to the city’s long under-served community of 26,000.

When we last checked in with Superior back in April, the city was working with Nokia for final configuration and testing before launch. Now, the municipal broadband network says its ConnectSuperior fiber network is live in its first two target neighborhoods in the northern part of the city (see the city’s latest deployment map).

The city’s open access network means that multiple broadband providers can compete over the same shared infrastructure. Historically such a model helps boost competition and drive down costs for both consumers and competitors. That’s already the case in Superior, where the city’s website lists two providers – Advanced Stream and Superion Networks – with more on the way.

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Advanced Stream is offering locals three tiers of service: a symmetrical 300 megabit per second (Mbps) tier for $63 a month; a symmetrical 650 Mbps tier for $75 a month; and a symmetrical one gigabit per second (Gbps) tier for $83 a month.

Superion is offering three tiers of service as well: a symmetrical 300 Mbps tier for $63 a month; a symmetrical 650 Mbps tier for $75 a month; and a symmetrical 1 Gbps tier for $85 a month. Both companies offer phone bundles for a modest additional surcharge.

Conexon Connect, the ISP arm of fiber broadband builder Conexon, says it has completed its new fiber build in Cairo, Georgia in close collaboration with Grady Electrical Membership Corporation (EMC).

The finished network brings affordable fiber access to 158,000 homes and businesses across the state, including Cairo (population 10,054). 

It’s Conexon Connect’s seventh completed broadband fiber to the home project in Georgia and twelfth completed broadband network overall since the ISP was created in 2021.

In January of 2023 Grady EMC was awarded a $9.3 million grant made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Grady announced its partnership with Conexon in March of 2023.

Grady EMC is technically the statewide trade association that serves Georgia’s 41 electric membership corporations. As we’re seeing across the country, these cooperatives are leveraging their century-old experience with rural electrification to push fiber into many rural areas long neglected by dominant regional telecom monopolies.

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“This project truly shows what's possible when a community comes together with a shared vision for a brighter, more connected future,” Grady EMC CEO John Long said in a statement.

Grady will be seeking additional funding opportunities to extend affordable fiber access to the cooperative’s 13,000 members across Grady, Decatur and Thomas counties.