1. Monthly archive
  2. June 2025

June 2025

Planes, trains and automobiles: The challenges of bringing broadband everywhere

At Fiber Connect in Nashville (TN), a panel of experts discussed the challenges of delivering broadband to the absolute hardest places in America using ferries, planes, and crossing international borders. One example came from panelist Donna Hilty, COO at Whidbey Telecom, which is in the Northwest corner of the state of Washington. The company’s footprint covers several islands.

Don’t rely on shaky USF funding for BEAD

Changes are coming for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. While BEAD, a $42.5 billion COVID-era initiative to connect all remaining unserved locations in the U.S. to high-speed internet, is a relatively new broadband funding program, the Universal Service Fund, which has existed in its current form for nearly three decades, is also facing an existential crisis.

Sen Blackburn Wants More Spectrum in Reconciliation

Sen Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is looking for a larger pipeline of licensed spectrum as the Senate takes up a sweeping budget bill. The bill, officially dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and narrowly passed by the House, would reinstate the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to auction off spectrum, which expired in March 2023. With the reauthorization would come a mandate to sell 600 megahertz of exclusive-use spectrum for mobile or fixed broadband, a pipeline the wireless carriers have been pushing to get included.

FBA's Marissa Mitrovich on the growth of fiber and future of BEAD

According to research released by the Fiber Broadband Association and consulting firm RVA, roughly 88.1 million households in the US now have access to fiber, representing 56.5% of all homes.

AI leaves web in the lurch

The Artificial Intelligence-fixated tech industry is rapidly dismantling the old web, with no game plan for how to replace it. Chatbots have already begun to 

Fiber Expansion Strong Despite BEAD Delays: Fiber Connect 2025

Gary Bolton, CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association, kicked off the Fiber Connect 2025 conference in Nashville by pointing out two sides of the same coin: fiber internet connectivity has made great strides in recent decades, even though the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program is not progressing as quickly as hoped. The theme for this year’s Fiber Connect conference—“Light It Up”—was chosen based on the idea that, by the time of this conference, BEAD funds would have lit up the first communities in the country with fiber, he said. Bolton’s introduction to Fiber Connect wasn’t al

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