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Winning funding in the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband program will be “trickier than we were hoping for,” said Charter CEO Chris Winfrey. “We didn’t get all the guidelines and [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] instructions that we were hoping for,” Winfrey said. Instead, some of the guidelines that have been established are “unhelpful to private capital.” Although Winfrey didn’t elaborate, this may have been a reference to rules that favor public/private partnerships. 

LICT completed its spinoff of Michigan Broadband on August 31, 2023. The spinoff company is now known as MachTen. LICT, a rural broadband consolidator with operations in several states, withdrew from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program due to “substantial cost increases and other significant changes within the organization since we first participated and won in the RDOF public auction.”

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has tried hard to generate excitement about Buy America requirements for the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program, even enlisting US Vice President Kamala Harris in the process.

As the US sets out to get everyone connected to broadband, it’s about more than just making sure broadband is available everywhere.

Small rural carriers have a big decision to make by September 29, 2023, now that the Federal Communication Commission has released new broadband funding offers. The new offers are contingent on a higher broadband speed, as mandated in the enhanced Alternative Connect America Model (E-ACAM) order. Carriers must advise the FCC by the September 2023 deadline, on a state-by-state basis, whether they want to participate in the E-ACAM program and accept the new offers. The initial program, established several years ago, covers some of the costs of deploying broadband to unserved areas based on a

Charter and Brightspeed have formally announced broadband funding wins in the latest round of funding through the North Carolina Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) program.

Kwikom--a broadband provider based in Kansas that also serves some markets in Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma--has begun work on fiber deployments in several Kansas markets. Deployments in some of these markets were funded, in part, through a state broadband program and, in part, by funding provided by local governments. The total investment will be $12 million. Over 7,000 homes and businesses will be reached. The markets that will be partially grant-funded include Pomona, Quenemo (KS), and over 20 square miles of rural area between Ottawa and Quenemo.

Fixed wireless access (FWA) provider Starry Group Holdings has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a smaller, more narrowly focused privately held company. The implementation of Starry’s reorganization plan completes a process that began in February 2023 when the company filed voluntary petitions for bankruptcy in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and entered into a restructuring support agreement with lenders hold

Regional provider United Communications says it will invest $85 million to reach 77,000 members of the Middle Tennessee Electric (MTE) electric cooperative in Murfreesboro (TN). [United Communications is the broadband unit of MTE.] The multi-year project will add 1,400 route miles of fiber and be capable of providing multi-gigabit service to residential and business customers. The initiative is expected to add about 150 jobs in the area.

Ubiquity has launched open access networks in Carlsbad (CA) and Mesa (AZ). The company said the Mesa deployment is the nation’s first scaled fiber deployment, in which service provider tenants will use both lit and dark fiber to service business and residential customers. At the same time, the company announced new fiber “footprints” in Omaha (NE) and Council Bluffs (IA).