State and local leaders joined the Louisiana Office of Broadband Development and Connectivity (ConnectLA) , community stakeholders and Optimum—a local provider of fiber internet, mobile and TV services—to mark the completion of a broadband expansion project delivering reliable, high-speed internet access across Sabine Parish, Louisiana. The project brings connectivity to more than 3,000 homes and businesses, expanding access in areas that previously faced limited or unreliable service.

Five Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) received federal broadband funding. Each faced different terrain: different communities, different levels of trust, different local economies. So each built something different. This is what they built, and what happened. Across all five sites, we found the same underlying logic model at work: local context shaping decisions about infrastructure delivery, adoption strategy, and economic pathway, and those decisions galvanizing regional impacts.

The agency I lead, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) is the major grant-making entity for our state. ADECA is at the eight-year mark of implementing massive broadband grant programs—innovative in their scale and complexity—to address rural broadband gaps and create new economic opportunities. These programs are delivering value not only for unserved homes and businesses, but also for institutions such as universities, public safety agencies, rural hospitals, and other critical parts of the broader economic and community fabric in the state of Alabama.

Louisiana state and local leaders joined ConnectLA, community members, and Optimum at Jonesboro-Hodge Elementary School to celebrate a broadband expansion project bringing reliable, high-speed fiber internet to communities across Jackson Parish. The project has expanded broadband availability to over 2,000 homes and businesses, strengthening digital infrastructure in areas that previously lacked dependable connectivity and supporting greater access to education, healthcare, workforce participation, and economic opportunity.

Brightspeed announced that its fiber network build is nearly 75 percent complete in South Carolina. Now, more than 47,000 homes and businesses in the Palmetto State have access to the country’s fastest internet service. Construction crews remain active in Beaufort, Greenwood, Hampton, Jasper, Laurens, Orangeburg and Saluda counties. Construction of the company’s fiber network in the community of Ninety Six is well underway.

Flagstaff (AZ) tells the story of how one city turned a broadband gap into a model for municipal fiber deployment. Long underserved by incumbent providers, Flagstaff recognized that reliable, high-speed connectivity was essential not just for city operations, but for the economic future of the broader region—enabling remote work, telemedicine, education, and business growth across rural northern Arizona.

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The Healey-Driscoll Administration and Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s (MassTech) Massachusetts Broadband Institute awarded a combined $7,581,940 to 37 housing organizations in support of digital skills training, device access and other services that help residents secure access to and benefit from the internet.

Spectrum announced the expansion of its fiber broadband network to bring Spectrum Internet services to more than 1,000 additional homes and businesses in previously unserved or underserved areas of southeast Antrim County, including in the townships of Mancelona and Star. The expansion was funded in part by a Realizing Opportunity with Broadband Infrastructure Networks Broadband Grant, a joint effort between Spectrum and the Michigan High-Speed Internet Office to deliver high-speed internet to unserved communities. This project is supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number CPFF

Spectrum announced the expansion of its fiber broadband network to bring Spectrum Internet services to nearly 600 additional homes and businesses in previously unserved or underserved areas of Ionia County (MI), including Berlin, Boston, Easton, Ionia, Keene, Lyons, North Plains, Orange, and Ronald. The expansion was funded in part by a Realizing Opportunity with Broadband Infrastructure Networks Broadband Grant, a joint effort between Spectrum and the Michigan High-Speed Internet Office to deliver high-speed internet to unserved communities.