Analysis

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) will put $42.45 billion into broadband buildout, to be distributed by the states. Less than a year earlier, the FCC’s high-cost Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) committed $9 billion for rural buildout and subsidies in some of the same areas. Here, I explore which RDOF areas are likely to get funded, what that means for the remaining unserved locations, and the amount of funding each state will have for each remaining unserved location.

As you might expect, the lobbying is becoming hot and heavy to position internet service providers (ISPs) to win the $42.5 billion of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants that will likely start being awarded in 2023. This is one of the most interesting lobbying challenges I’ve ever seen because there is no one central place that will be awarding these grants. Congress gave the responsibility for these grants to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), but the money is going to flow from them to the states.

On April 19, Governor JB Pritzker (D-IL) signed the 2023 Illinois state budget into law. Included in the 500+ page legislation is the Broadband Infrastructure Advancement Act (P.A. 102-0699), the state's overarching procedures to make use of coming federal monies to support broadband deployment projects.

I’m not sure that most people understand the extent to which our online experience has moved to the cloud – and this movement to the cloud means we’re using a lot more bandwidth than in the recent past. A huge number of online functions now reside in the cloud, when only a few years ago a lot of processing was done on our computers. The shift to the cloud is still an ongoing transition and there are still plenty of software packages that are not processed in the cloud, but it’s obvious that everything will eventually be in the cloud.

Tens of billions of dollars in federal funding are poised for new broadband infrastructure deployment over the next five years. But a crucial step in allocating funds from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program - for states and local governments - lies in knowing where fast, affordable, reliable broadband access currently is, so that they know where to drive new investment.

One thing that is extremely rare in the broadband industry is lawsuits between internet service providers (ISPs) concerning unfair trade practices. Big ISPs bully and compete unfairly against small ISPs all of the time, and yet you don’t hear of many cases where a small ISP sues the big ISP. There are several reasons for this. One is simple to understand – the big ISPs have a flock of in-house lawyers who can overwhelm anybody who sues them. Little ISPs don’t generally have the deep pockets needed to last through a long, protracted lawsuit.

Alan Davidson, the Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), recently held a press conference and webcast talking about the $1 billion Middle-Mile Broadband Infrastructure grant program. The biggest takeaway from that conversation is that the NTIA is likely to make these awards much sooner than the awards from the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grants for last-mile broadband. Davidson was not specific about the dates of these grants, but anybody wanting to request one of these grants should start getting ready.

As the midterms approach, the White House may resurrect earlier proposals to overhaul the corporate tax program. One component, sometimes called the “Amazon tax,” would impose a 15 percent minimum tax on large corporations’ book income (the income reported to investors on financial statements) rather than taxable income, to ensure all companies pay each year. This impulse may seem egalitarian, but because of a quirk in accounting rules governing spectrum licenses, this proposal disproportionately harms wireless companies and could deter broadband buildout.

There has been a huge shift in broadband subscriptions from early in the pandemic until the end of 2021. Increasingly, customers are signing up for faster broadband speed tiers. It’s obvious that a lot of people have upgraded their broadband subscription during the eighteen months. I’ve heard a lot of anecdotal evidence to support this from my internet service provider (ISP) clients. My consulting firm does a lot of surveys and interviews, and we’ve been seeing this shift everywhere.

Previously, US Ignite provided an overview of funding opportunities and highlighted a sample of current state projects. Here we explain the role of state broadband offices, where to find them, and how to initiate a successful partnership. Here are four suggestions we think will guide you in engaging your state broadband officials: