The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Washington received its first “Internet for All” grants for deploying high-speed Internet networks and developing digital skills training programs under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative. Washington is receiving $6,076,248.79 in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to plan for the deployment and adoption of affordable, equitable, and reliable high-speed Internet service throughout the state. Washington will receive $5 million in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants to fund various activities including:  

• Identification of unserved and underserved locations in the state; 
• Training of employees and capacity-building of the broadband office; 
• Ensuring broadband projects do not result in overbuilding areas;  
• Collaborating with local, regional, and Tribal entities, as well as unions and worker organizations; 
• Asset mapping across Washington to catalog high-speed Internet service adoption, affordability, equity, access and deployment; 
• Surveying communities to better understand barriers to Internet service adoption. 

Washington will receive $1,076,248.79 in Digital Equity Act grants to fund various activities including:  

• Developing a statewide digital equity plan; 
• Hiring new team members and contracting with a vendor to assist with plan development; 
• Conducting a digital literacy survey; 
• Convening a state digital equity forum to identify barriers to digital equity. 

In 2012, Governor John Hickenlooper (D-CO) charged the Colorado Office of Information Technology (OIT) with overseeing and coordinating broadband activity across state agencies. In 2016, OIT created the Colorado Broadband Office. The office enables the development of a statewide digital communications infrastructure through public-private partnerships to meet the growing demand for broadband access in the key sectors of public safety, education, health care, transportation and for all Coloradans. The state legislature codified the broadband office in 2021. On February 17, 2022, Governor Jared Polis (D-CO) directed the Colorado Broadband Office to develop a Broadband Strategic Plan to connect 99 percent of Colorado households to high-speed broadband by 2027. In June 2022, Governor Polis signed an executive order outlining directives on Accelerating Broadband Deployment in Colorado.

I am often asked about the role that broadband providers should take in making sure that we solve the digital divide. I think that people are somewhat shocked every time when I tell them this is not a role for broadband providers. In explaining my answer, let me start by parsing what is meant by the question. We are about to see a lot of grant funding for getting computers into homes and training folks on how to use them. The folks asking this question are hopeful that providers are going to take up that role in any meaningful way. The reality is that is rarely going to happen – and it’s not something we should be expecting from broadband providers. Broadband providers are in the business of building broadband networks and keeping them running. That’s a full-time job. I don’t think that the folks asking this question understand the challenge involved in helping somebody to cross the digital divide. You can’t just hand out computers to homes that don’t have them. A computer is a brick for a household where nobody knows how to use it. It takes a lot of one-on-one effort to sit with people and help them learn how to navigate the possibilities of broadband. Communities that want to solve the digital divide issues should look elsewhere – perhaps at existing non-profits. There are some local governments that are going to take a stab at this. If no such group exists, then use grant money to kick-start the effort.

When the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband maps came out, we were quick to compare the number of unserved locations in the new maps to the number of unserved housing units in the previous Form 477 data. As expected, the number of unserved locations doubled, from 3.6 million to 7.8 million. But that comparison isn’t apples-to-apples. The Form 477 data includes fixed wireless access (FWA) delivered over unlicensed spectrum while the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, which is the de facto new definition of broadband, excludes fixed wireless delivered over unlicensed spectrum. The denominator is the same, but the numerators are different. Were unlicensed fixed wireless to be included, there would only be 6 million unserved locations, 23% fewer than the official definition. Almost 700,000 locations that are officially defined as unserved in the new maps would be served (100/20 or better) if FWA were included. 975,000 of the unserved would move to underserved. And 6 million of the original 7.8 million locations would remain unserved. Under this definition, the biggest states would lose the most, but rural states would also be affected. Texas would have 344,000 fewer unserved locations and California would have 134,000 fewer. But Colorado would have 83,000 fewer, Idaho would have 72,000 fewer, and Oklahoma would have 52,000 fewer. In small states, swings of that size would have dramatic consequences on overall BEAD allocations.