Infrastructure

Rules for the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program give individual states considerable leeway in how they define project areas—and broadband providers applying for funding should expect to see considerable variation from one state to the next. Depending on the state, providers may even be able to define their own project areas. There is considerable variation among states that are allowing providers to define their own project area. For example, Louisiana established clusters of Hex9s, which the state calls sub project areas (SPAs).

A delegation of US Congress members part of the Congressional Western Caucus and House Commerce Committee was in Bakersfield (CA) on May 10. At a nearly two-hour field hearing, Central Valley farming representatives joined rural internet service providers in highlighting the importance of high-speed connectivity to precision agriculture as well as poor communities reliant on computers for health care, education and remote work. While there was little question how vital internet service has become to rural areas, the underlying question was what role the government should have in not only he

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited a recently completed Comcast rural broadband project in Stafford County, Virginia, highlighting that this is a public-private project between Comcast and the county. The giant cable company is involved in public-private partnerships across its national footprint. For years cable operators such as Comcast, Charter and Cox have fought hard against municipal broadband projects, always crying that it’s wrong for taxpayer dollars to compete against their private investments.

As part of its ongoing network expansion, Great Plains Communications (GPC) announced network expansion to an additional 5,000+ homes and businesses in urban and rural Nebraska communities in 2024. The company recently completed projects and turned up fiber services including symmetrical Internet speeds up to 2 Gigabits per second to over 3,900 homes and businesses in Gretna, Papillion, Ralston and additional areas of their existing Kearney, Nebraska footprint. Additional urban Nebraska projects in progress include over 1,000 passings in LaVista, projected to be complete in Q3, 2024.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that certain Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) census blocks are now eligible for other funding programs. This comes after Charter Communications and Altice informed the FCC of their decisions to withdraw from the RDOF support program. Both companies will face penalties for withdrawing from the program. 

Rep Dusty Johnson (R-SD) introduced legislation to streamline the permitting process for broadband infrastructure projects. The Facilitating Optimal and Rapid Expansion and Siting of Telecommunications (FOREST) Act will cut down bureaucratic red tape to improve broadband access in rural America. The lengthy permitting process on federal lands has prevented the federal government from improving broadband access, even though billions of dollars are available to improve broadband deployment.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has said 2024 will be “the year of execution” for Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD). But the agency still has a ways to go in approving initial proposals for each state and territory. Louisiana was the first to get its plan approved in December.

Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Assistant Secretary of Commerce Alan Davidson will travel to OFS’s headquarters in Norcross (GA) with Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) to celebrate the announcement of new jobs and increased domestic production of optical fiber and fiber optic cable thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. As a result of the Build America, Buy America Act and the Internet for All programs, OFS has announced it will create 100 jobs, including union jobs, and expand its US production of fiber for use in connecting locations across the US to reliab

Spectrum announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to more than 550 homes and small businesses in Crawford, Crane, Eden, Jackson, Marseilles, Richland, Ridge, Salem and Tymochtee Townships (OH). Spectrum’s newly constructed fiber-optic network buildout in Wyandot County is part of the company’s approximately $5 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund-related investment in unserved rural communities, partly offset by $1.2 billion in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) RDOF auction.

Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC) announced Multi-Gig Flight Fiber Internet is now available in Farmington (MN). Phase One construction of HBC’s reliable Flight Fiber Fiber-To-The-Premise (FTTP) network in Farmington is now complete and providing high-speed Internet, TV, and Phone services to more than 1,500 homes and businesses in the city.