Jake Varn

As policymakers in the nation’s states and territories explore how best to spend billions of dollars in federal infrastructure money intended to expand access to broadband, a key focus has been on how to avoid a host of potential obstacles that can impede or thwart their progress. Critically, stakeholders in a majority of states repeatedly raised the same key issues.

Before implementing their BEAD programs, every state and territory broadband office will have one last chance to update the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) new broadband availability maps by running their own challenge process. This will be the final step in determining which areas are eligible for a BEAD-funded project.

Under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, providers are required to offer a low-cost option to subscribers who are eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). However, the exact definition of what will qualify as “low-cost” is up to state and territory broadband offices to decide.

States are implementing a variety of strategies as they allocate the initial rounds of federal Capital Projects Fund (CPF) dollars to help expand access to broadband services. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has officially released more than half of the CPF dollars, with $6 billion awarded to 40 states as of May 2023.

Broadband officials have been hitting the road in 2023, conducting listening sessions across their states and territories.

We sent a memo to state broadband offices that are participating in our broadband education and training initiative, detailing the diverse strategies that California, Iowa, Michigan, and North Carolina have employed to direct grant funding to priority areas—communities that have a substantial unmet need for investment in broadband infrastructure. Several state broadband programs have utilized mechanisms to designate specific communities as “priority areas” within the project areas eligible for grants, allowing them to target or further incentivize grant funding to those communities.

The Federal Communications Commission released an updated map detailing broadband availability nationwide that will be used to allocate $42 billion in federal funds to states and territories to help expand access to affordable high-speed internet.

State and territory broadband offices have dramatically increased in size over the past year as they deploy billions of dollars in economic recovery funds and start to manage a historic federal investment in broadband expansion.

The Pew Charitable Trusts sent a memo to state broadband offices that are participating in its technical assistance program, the broadband education and training initiative, that discussed how states can use line extension programs to subsidize “curb-to-home” connections—the final segments of infrastructure needed to connect each individual home or business to a broadband network. Pew looks at how three states have implemented programs to address last-mile expansion, including the rules and procedures they employ to award funds to households, property owners, or internet service providers.

Pew Charitable Trusts assesses broadband grant scoring metrics, with side-by-side comparisons of the metrics used by Indiana, Minnesota, and Virginia. These three states represent both relatively well-established state broadband grant programs as well as
programs that updated their scoring systems in 2020 and 2021. Major points include: