telecompetitor

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has now accepted digital equity plans from all 50 States, DC, and Puerto Rico.

Alabama-based Dragonfly Internet was created in 2023 when ITC Holding Company bought a local fixed wireless provider and opted to change the name. Since then, Dragonfly has been upgrading the fixed wireless equipment that the previous company had deployed and expanding to unserved and underserved areas using a mixture of fixed wireless and fiber. “Our preference is to use fiber where we can,” CEO David Hartin said. “But there will be communities where fixed wireless will make a lot of sense to do.

Charter Communications said that although it “disagrees with NAD’s conclusion,” it will comply with modifications to an advertisement for its Spectrum Business Wireless Internet Backup service suggested by BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division (NAD). The challenge to the ad was brought by AT&T Services. NAD found that disclosures were not prominent enough and confusing.

Minnesota didn’t wait for the federal government’s help to make funding available for rural broadband deployments. The state’s Border to Border program is often cited as a model for rural broadband funding.

The City of Cabot, Arkansas, is getting a high-speed broadband network that the city will own and that will be operated by Connect2First, the broadband unit of local power company First Electric Cooperative Corporation. Unlike many broadband buildouts these days, the network will be built without any government funding.

Over a quarter of states are expected to be able to have enough Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding to get broadband to all their unserved and underserved areas and still have money left. At the other end of the spectrum, some states are struggling to meet national goals of making broadband available to everyone and to deploy fiber to the maximum extent possible.