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  2. September 2025

September 2025

Just More BEAD Plans

More states and territories are releasing their final Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program final proposals for public comment before seeking  National Telecommunications and Information Administration approval. These states received extensions past the NTIA’s early September deadline to submit final plans. 

  • The Idaho Office of Broadband released its Draft Final Proposal for public comment on September 16. In its proposal, Idaho plans to spend almost $136 million of its $583 million in BEAD funding towards broadband deployment.

Analysis

Just More BEAD Plans

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

Thursday, September 25, 2025

Ok, so maybe AI isn’t changing everything

It often feels like AI is changing everything about the tech business—rewriting the rules of coding, swamping social media with deepfakes, even changing how companies are born. It’s happening so fast that even the most powerful tech firms are pleading helplessness.

Reusing the News: Duplicating Local TV Content

Local U.S. television news provides citizens with crucial local information, particularly during periods of heightened political, social, or environmental salience. Yet local television news is under increased pressure to consolidate, which may serve to de-localize local news reporting by duplicating news content delivery across local broadcast stations. We employed automated text reuse methods to measure the extent to which local broadcast station pairs duplicated (exact text reuse) each other’s news content. Key findings include:

Federal Plan Changes May Reduce Nation’s Internet Connectivity

The Trump administration's changes to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program have disqualified hundreds of thousands of locations — including homes, businesses and community buildings — from receiving internet access. And the program's new technology-neutral approach will also shift a large portion of the federal funds toward satellite internet companies, including Elon Musk's Starlink, that cost less to build but have more uneven service than underground fiber optic cable.

Sponsor 

Heartland Forward

Date 
Tue, 09/30/2025 - 10:00

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