Reporting

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration approved Montana’s plan to expand digital access, skills and affordability as part of the federal $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act. Montana’s Digital Opportunity Plan listed barriers to digital access, which include broadband availability, service affordability, device access, and digital skills—with access and affordability being the top two. The plan is intended to serve as a guide for the state’s efforts to narrow the digital divide.

As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considers pleas for more lenient Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) fines, electric co-ops are saying it's time for defaulters to own up. Internet service providers (ISP) have been defaulting on RDOF grants for years and have been struck with sizeable penalties from the FCC as a result.

The state of Maryland has created a useful online dashboard showing how much broadband funding it awarded between 2019 and 2023. Interested parties can check information by provider and by year. A total of 20 entities received grants during the five years covered by the dashboard, which was posted by the Maryland Office of Statewide Broadband. The 10 companies that were awarded the most money were

Service providers shouldn’t let reporting requirements or a requirement to offer low-cost service stop them from applying for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding, said Evan Feinman, BEAD program director for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The requirement to offer a low-cost service has become a particularly big concern as funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is set to run out. Many providers had seen the FCC $30-a-month ACP benefit for low-income customers as a means of meeting that requirement.

Starlink's mobile ambitions were dealt at least a temporary blow when the Federal Communications Commission dismissed SpaceX's application to use several spectrum bands for mobile service. SpaceX is seeking approval to use up to 7,500 second-generation Starlink satellites with spectrum in the 1.6 GHz, 2 GHz, and 2.4 GHz bands. SpaceX could still end up getting what it wants but will have to go through new rulemaking processes in which the FCC will evaluate whether the spectrum bands can handle the system without affecting existing users.

Tillman Fiber is expanding its fiber networks in Florida, and it has confirmed that it’s “collaborating” with T-Mobile on the project. The fiber network expansion will serve four areas of the state, including the cities of St. Petersburg, Fort Myers, Naples, Pensacola, Miami, Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale and Kissimmee. We already knew that Tillman was working with T-Mobile in the Florida counties of Pinellas and Polk, which includes St. Petersburg and Lakeland.

Wireless internet service providers (WISPs) hit a homerun when federal officials clarified that areas covered by broadband running on Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum could be marked as served for purposes of BEAD. Many folks in the fiber broadband community are not familiar with wireless internet service and the rules regarding wireless spectrum.

The Michigan High Speed Internet Office kicked off its BEAD challenge process this week, and it’s doing everything in its power to scrub the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) map of locations where providers are overstating their coverage. The state is receiving a historic $1.56 billion BEAD funding allocation—the fourth highest in the nation.

Blink and it’s easy to miss Google Fiber news. In March, the company offered progress reports on multiple GFiber markets, including some that hadn’t been previously announced. On March 11, the company said it was working in Pocatello and Chubbuck, Idaho. On March 18, the company noted that service was available in an apartment and condo building in Hillsborough, North Carolina, which is near Duke University.

For rural operators, fixed wireless access (FWA) technologies have served well to "edge-out" and deliver services to areas that can't be reached by cable and fiber networks cost-effectively.