Charlotte Keith

More Pennsylvanians will receive satellite internet service from SpaceX after last-minute changes to the state’s plan to spend more than $700 million in broadband funding. The latest adjustments continue a shift that began in 2025, when the Trump administration, seeking to lower costs, overhauled the rules for a massive broadband grant program. The new version of the state’s plan more than doubles the number of locations that the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX will cover.

A federal official recently added a new wrinkle to Pennsylvania’s plan to use more than $700 million to expand high-speed internet access across the commonwealth.

Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand broadband access in Pennsylvania through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program is still on hold, after federal officials failed to meet their self-imposed December 2025 deadline to review the commonwealth’s plan for spending the money. Without federal approval, Pennsylvania cannot finalize agreements with the companies that expect to receive the money, and they cannot begin construction. The cause of the delay is unclear. Pennsylvania submitted its plan on September 4.

It’s been a year of sweeping and controversial changes for a huge federal broadband initiative. The $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program was created in 2021 with bipartisan support and an ambitious goal: bring high-speed internet access to every home and business in the U.S., no matter how remote.

Thousands of Pennsylvanians could soon be hit with higher internet bills when the Affordable Connectivity Program starts to run out of money next month. Unless Congress approves more funding, April 2024 will be the last time many residents receive the benefit in full. The looming end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) comes as Pennsylvania starts to spend an unprecedented surge of federal investment intended to bring high-speed internet access to every U.S. resident.

The Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority recently reversed its position on whether state law could cause problems for an unprecedented surge of federal investment for expanding access to high-speed internet. In the first draft of the state’s plan for administering more than $1 billion in federal funding, the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority said that to avoid a conflict with federal law it would waive an obscure state statute that restricts when local governments can build their own internet networks. But in the 

In the coming years, Pennsylvania will receive more than $1 billion in federal funding to bring high-speed internet access to everyone in the state. It’s a historic opportunity and a serious challenge, according to a new plan from the state Broadband Development Authority that outlines how it will accomplish that goal over the next five years.

Board meetings of the Southern Alleghenies (PA) Planning & Development Commission tended to be straightforward. No one had spoken during the public comment period in years. But in January 2022, the calm was broken when Richard Latker, president of a local civic group, read out a lengthy statement that lambasted officials for a lack of transparency. Latker said the regional commission was spending thousands of dollars to fight the release of basic information and accused officials of misleading state regulators.

Everyone in Pennsylvania has access to broadband—at least, according to the definition set by state lawmakers in the early 2000s. But ask residents of rural areas about their internet speeds, and you’ll likely hear about slow connections and outdated technology. In 1993, the state legislature approved a sweeping measure they hoped would guarantee universal access to high-speed internet in Pennsylvania.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes the largest-ever federal investment in broadband. Pennsylvania could receive as much as $1 billion — enough to seriously move the needle. But the state may now have another, more unique problem. In 2004, Pennsylvania lawmakers gave telephone companies what one critic at the time described as a “virtual veto” over publicly-owned networks they saw as unwelcome competition. But for years afterward, the law was rarely invoked.