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August 2025

Vermont Community Broadband Board Announces New Program to Help Ensure All Vermonters Can Get Connected to Broadband

The Vermont Community Broadband Board has a new program to help Vermonters afford to get connected to broadband. The Affordable Long Drop Program will provide grants to eligible providers to cover connection costs for long or nonstandard drops, including underground installations. Providers currently pay costs that exceed routine installation fees to connect addresses that are considered standard drops. Those are for houses that are closer than 500-2,000 feet from the fiber that runs along utility poles on the road, depending on the provider.

Louisiana’s Revised BEAD Awardees: Who Gains? Who Loses?

Louisiana has released its updated Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program final proposal for public comment. It is based on the state’s Benefit of the Bargain round conducted under the new program rules and includes a revised list of proposed funding awardees. The next step is for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to approve the final proposal, which will finalize the awardees. Perhaps the biggest question on the industry’s mind is about the impact of the new BEAD rules on the broadband technology mix.

Analysis

NTIA Limits Community Anchor Institution BEAD Eligibility

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

Monday, August 11, 2025

What’s Next for USF?

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to operate and fund the Universal Service Fund, overturning rulings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which agreed with Consumers’ Research and said that the USF is unconstitutional. This puts the issue back on the table of somehow fixing the USF, which universally is regarded as broken. The current funding mechanism of taxing interstate telephone services is becoming untenable, with the current USF fee set at 36 percent of the applicable revenue source.

Commissioner Trusty Announces Staff Changes

Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty announced two staff additions, one permanent hire, and one departure. Marcus Maher is joining the Office of Commissioner Trusty as Senior Legal Advisor, where he will lead on wireline, enforcement, media, and consumer issues. He joins the office from the Office of General Counsel’s Administrative Law Division, where he served as Assistant General Counsel focused on an array of legal issues, including infrastructure deployment, universal service, and the Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding. Fatimah Brown is joining as Staff Assistant.

Evaluating the Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications

The Federal Communications Commission has voted to kick off its annual review of the pace and cadence of broadband deployment. The Notice of Inquiry reorients the Commission’s approach to the Section 706 Report by adhering more closely to the plain language of the statute and takes a fresh look at this question of whether broadband “is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” The Notice takes a technology-neutral and holistic approach to evaluate the state of broadband availability and progress in closing the digital divide in the United States.

Moving toward a continuum model of broadband affordability for low-income households

In the United States, millions of Americans lack a broadband connection at home due to the high cost and unaffordability of services. In 2021, Congress allocated nearly $65 billion for broadband programs through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. A large portion of these funds were allocated for the Broadband, Equity, Access, & Deployment and Digital Equity Act programs, which allocated funds to states for deploying infrastructure, promoting broadband adoption, and developing programs to develop digital skills.

SHLB & Benton Urge NTIA to Defer to States In Defining Anchors Under BEAD

The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society have submitted a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration urging the agency to provide states with broad deference and expansive flexibility to determine which locations qualify as a community anchor institution under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.

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