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Digital inclusion advocates are bracing themselves for an uncertain year ahead, as the incoming GOP regime takes aim at key aspects of the Digital Equity Act and the BEAD program. New Street Research policy advisor Blair Leven and NDIA's Angela Siefer offer insights on what to expect.

A growing number of ISPs in states like Minnesota say they may not participate in the BEAD program. A number of Minnesota ISPs are still bristling at BEAD’s requirements, according to Brent Christensen, president and CEO of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance, an organization that represents 70 ISPs across the North Star State.

North Carolina’s Roanoke Cooperative continues to make steady progress with expansion of its Fybe last mile fiber network within The Tar Heel State. Cooperative officials tell ILSR that the cooperative and a coalition of organizations across North Carolina have major expansion plans in the works, starting with a fiber build in Halifax County, population 47,298.

States wary about the restrictions and delays with looming federal broadband grants are poised to put significant taxpayer resources into Starlink and other low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations. The problem: such services often aren’t affordable, raise environmental questions, and may struggle to keep pace with consumer capacity demand.

ILSR's Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance invite you to wear your ugly sweater and dive into what a post-Biden administration broadband world may look like. The final B4DE of the 2024 of the year features two prominent figures in this space: NDIA Executive Director Angela Siefer and New Street Policy Advisor Blair Levin.

The Boulder, Colorado city council has voted unanimously in favor of striking a $9 million deal with Nebraska based ALLO Communications that should ultimately provide fast fiber access to most of the city’s 330,000 residents. As per the deal, ALLO will provide broadband service to 80 percent of the city by 2028 and 97 percent of the city by 2030.

New “study” maligning municipal broadband doesn’t come as much of a surprise despite its sweeping and patently false claims about the entire sector.

New York’s Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) continues to provide grant funds to build municipal broadband networks across the state, as state broadband officials recently announced the program’s largest round of funding to date. Earlier this month, $140 million in grant awards were announced for six projects from the Finger Lakes to North Country Region.

Erie County, New York’s ErieNet broadband initiative is poised to begin construction in Buffalo, NY, after the Buffalo Common Council recently passed a resolution approving the Telecommunications License Agreement with ErieNet LDC. The approval is a major step toward bringing affordable next-gen broadband access to long-neglected parts of Western New York.

Bell Canada’s history of anti-competitive behavior could herald a culture shift at the ascending provider with Ziply and Bell Canada’s rapid-fire acquisition of smaller providers across the Pacific Northwest.

The city council voted to provide a $3.1 million loan from the city’s sewer fund to complete the build-out of Fort Dodge Fiber. In 2021, the city borrowed $33.3 million to pay for building the fiber optic utility with a loan to be paid off with revenue generated by Fort Dodge Fiber as the project expanded. But thanks to inflation and increasing labor and material costs, that $33.3 million isn’t going to be enough to finish the project.

In September we released our updated map pinpointing the location of the 400 municipally owned Internet service providers now serving almost 800 communities across the United States. Today, we unveil our predictive map that provides a multi-layered look into the near future of community broadband networks.

Consumer advocacy groups that frequently appear before the Federal Communications Commission are not happy with President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the agency. Brendan Carr, the agency’s senior Republican who’s now set to take the reins in January, wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC.

Though Northampton, Massachusetts residents still broadly support the construction of a city-owned municipal fiber broadband network, city officials are celebrating the arrival of Gateway Fiber which will soon be delivering a more affordable fiber option, and more broadband competition, to the traditionally underserved city. Gateway Fiber recently unveiled plans to deliver multi-gigabit speeds to large swaths of the city. The company, which will finance the entirety of the build, says it’s already invested $3 million in the project so far.

Louisiana’s only publicly-owned broadband provider says it’s expanding access into nearby Church Point, bringing affordable fiber access to the town of nearly 4,200 residents. LUS Fiber was awarded a $21 million grant to expand fiber outside of Lafayette as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP).

California’s $2 billion Last Mile Federal Funding Account Grant Program (FFA) has announced another $207 million in new broadband grants across Amador, Los Angeles, and Solano Counties. According to the state’s announcement, $61 million in new grants were awarded by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for five Last Mile FFA broadband infrastructure grant projects in Amador and Solano Counties, bringing affordable fiber Internet access to approximately 10,000 Californians.

A recent U.S. News And World Report survey of U.S. broadband subscribers shows that Americans are increasingly paying more money for broadband access. The survey also indicates broad public support for the recently defunded Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), and other government-backed efforts to cap soaring broadband subscription costs.

On the most recent episode of the Connect This! Show, the panel was joined by California-based Internet Exchange builder Matt Peterson of SFMIX to talk about the need for better, more practical, more forward-thinking middle mile networks across the United States.

The Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas say they recently finished delivering fiber broadband capability to more than one million Arkansans as part of a $4.66 billion expansion. More than 40,000 miles of fiber have been installed by 17 cooperative broadband providers, including 15 local broadband providers, one wholesale broadband provider, and one middle-mile fiber company.

Now that the election has been settled, many in the broadband space are wondering what, if anything, will change with the incoming Trump administration. We have to entertain the possibility that BEAD will change substantially.