1. Monthly archive
  2. July 2025

July 2025

States Receive NTIA Green Light to Relaunch BEAD Application Portals

States have started receiving federal approval to relaunch their subgrantee selection processes under a compressed grant round of the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program.  At least four states—Arkansas, Colorado, Michigan, and South Carolina—have announced they will relaunch their main application phase Monday, July 7. State broadband offices have been working around the clock to comply with a number of structural changes to the BEAD program 

Washington State opens the Benefit of the Bargain application round for $1.2 billion in BEAD funding

The Washington State Broadband Office opened its Benefit of the Bargain Broadband Equity Access and Deployment funding application, with applications due by July 23. The BEAD program is open to cooperatives, nonprofit organizations, public-private partnerships, private companies, public or private utilities, public utility districts, and local and tribal governments.

Love it or hate it, the AI moratorium will be back

The tech industry just came within hours of one of its most audacious moves in Congress yet: using the GOP’s megabill to block states from enforcing their laws on artificial intelligence for a decade. The House passed the AI moratorium as part of its megabill, and the Senate almost followed suit.

Mobile and broadband pair trades to consider this summer

While we have been intensively focused on such things as a Presidential intervention to prevent a Chapter 11, we admit that our mind occasionally drifts to thoughts of summer. So to help others who may have similar thoughts, we thought, in honor of summer beginning, we should provide our thoughts as to which alcohols pair best with the purchase of the stocks we cover (actually, we just asked ChatGPT and, given its attitude about intellectual property, we have no fears about just cutting and pasting what it wrote). 

Supreme Court ruled the USF is constitutional. Now the debate refocuses on reform, and who pays in

Broadband-for-all advocates and telecom providers who serve rural areas have spent the last couple of years worried about whether the U.S. Supreme Court would essentially scuttle the Universal Service Fund, which helps to subsidize service in underserved, rural, and remote areas of the country as well as connect libraries and schools across the country.

© 1994-2026 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.