The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program promises to transform connectivity in underserved communities — but securing funding has been anything but simple. In this episode of Fiber for Breakfast, Bree Maki, Director of Minnesota’s Office of Broadband Development, joins Gary Bolton, President & CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association, to share real-world challenges and best practices for navigating BEAD.
Rural broadband is facing a dramatic moment when the National Telecommunications and Information Administration decides what it's going to do with the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment proposals that States have presented to it. State Broadband Offices have been submitting final BEAD plans that are mostly fiber, which seems to fly in the face of the Trump administration's June 2025 changes to the program.
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When Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in late 2021, inflation was still “transitory,” interest rates were near zero, and tens of millions of Americans lacked access to high-speed internet. Lawmakers warned that only a massive federal investment could close the digital divide.
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