Tribal Digital Sovereignty has emerged as a definitive governance framework for Tribal Nations, evolving from decades of work by scholars and practitioners at the intersection of federal Indian law, telecommunications, digital equity, and tribal self-determination. The COVID-19 pandemic served as a pivotal catalyst for this evolution, recasting broadband from a luxury to an essential lifeline and exposing deep-seated disparities in connectivity.

The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program had immense promise to close the digital divide, said Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association. But changes to the BEAD Program are weakening its effectiveness. The biggest challenge to the promise of BEAD is the revised guidelines’ emphasis on technology neutrality.

New York State reopened the Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) Request for Applications, making up to $36 million available to support broadband infrastructure projects across the state through ConnectALL, the state’s broadband office. MIP connects unserved and underserved communities to high-speed internet through open-access and publicly controlled broadband infrastructure.

High-speed internet expansion is coming to fruition in Oklahoma. Two broadband expansion projects administered by the Oklahoma Broadband Office and funded through the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund have officially closed out, bringing new high-speed internet access to residents and businesses in Washita and Greer (OK) counties. The projects, completed by Dobson Fiber, are delivering reliable, fiber-optic internet service to 366 locations in and around Burns Flat and Granite.

The North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s (NCDIT) Division of Broadband and Digital Opportunity announced the launch of the $86 million Stop-Gap Solutions program to accelerate the expansion of high-speed internet infrastructure to eligible unserved and underserved rural households, businesses, community anchor institutions and state facilities in each county. This Stop-Gap Solutions program will fund broadband line extension projects to connect individuals or small pockets of households or businesses that have not been reached through the Growing Rural Economies with Access

This week, the Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama released a report, Broadband in Alabama’s Black Belt in 2025, that examines broadband infrastructure expansion efforts in Alabama's 24-county Black Belt region, an area characterized by persistent poverty and significant rural/urban divides. The authors set out to answer three specific questions about public investment, outcomes, and remaining connectivity gaps.

The Federal Communications Commission has adopted an order that will save the American public millions of dollars. Specifically, this action denies a request by Lifeline providers to extend the FCC’s COVID-era waiver of the program’s non-usage rules. In their requests, petitioners wanted the FCC to interpret the COVID-era waiver as extending one additional day because doing so would allow them to receive federal subsidies for an entire additional month, despite the continued non-usage of the service.

The Oklahoma Broadband Office has opened funding for the Capital Projects Fund 2.0, which will aim to serve 766 locations that remain unserved. The window will run through November 17, when the application portal will close. The Oklahoma funding notice says eligible applicants are cooperatives, electric utilities, and other entities that build or operate broadband networks, partnerships and consortium.

Last month, digital divide researchers convened at two major events: the Digital Access Research Forum and the Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (better known as TPRC).

This study examines the political economy, discursive legitimations, and effectiveness of the primary U.S. policy response to narrowing the digital divide: public subsidies for internet service. Using Philadelphia as our case study, we analyze municipal efforts to enroll low-income communities in low-cost commercial broadband plans supported by the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). Like many other U.S.