Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced that New York's ConnectALL Office has submitted over 31,000 addresses from across the state to the Federal Communications Commission under the Broadband Data Collection challenge process. The federal challenge process, which allows states to propose changes or updates to the FCC's broadband maps, helps to better locate areas unserved or underserved by broadband. In doing so, these proposed changes inform federal funding decisions regarding broadband access and help to ensure that high-speed internet is available at every address in the country. The Commerce Department is expected to begin disbursing broadband funding from the IIJA to states and territories in late 2023 based largely on the proportion of unserved and underserved homes and businesses in each state, using maps created by the FCC. The FCC has begun by issuing a "map fabric" that is meant to include all addresses in the country, which they shared with all states and other stakeholders to challenge and improve.

A Maine group that has halted previous municipal broadband networks is out to convince the Caribou City Council to dump the city utilities district’s fiber-optic plans in favor of a Spectrum proposal. The Caribou Utilities District is applying for grants to construct a single strand of dark fiber that they claim will offer gigabit speeds to all Caribou residents, starting with those in the most rural areas. Since the district is not a city department, councilors do not have the authority to pause or stop the project. But the council has been considering expansion proposals from Consolidated Communications and Spectrum. Spectrum has been working to influence councilors’ votes and citizen opinions through the Alliance for Quality Broadband Maine. In October, the Portland-based ad hoc group issued several advertisements that called the project “risky” and “wasteful” and criticized the multi-year timeline for constructing the dark fiber network. Alliance for Quality Broadband Maine appears to have taken the Caribou ads off its Facebook page. But the ads reached at least 5,000 people, according to Facebook data. Caribou’s population as of the 2020 U.S. census was 7,396. The alliance and its partners spent at least $100,000 on one Caribou ad and at least $700,000 on another, the data show. The alliance’s other ads have praised towns like Hampden for rejecting municipal-based broadband expansion projects. Spectrum officials did not respond to requests for comment but sent a letter to Caribou officials on Sept. 13 in which Melinda Kinney, senior director of government affairs for Charter, confirmed the $1.4 million cost of Spectrum’s proposal. The company would expand coverage to 294 unserved homes in Caribou and install 43 miles of dark fiber, increasing coverage to 74.5 miles. The project would take only 12 to 18 months, Kinney said.

Nevada is working to distribute its biggest-ever investment in broadband infrastructure in conjunction with local communities, despite state laws restricting municipalities and counties from providing telecommunications services. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is administering the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, wants municipal broadband providers to have access to these funds. But Nevada is one of 17 states with laws limiting the expansion of municipal broadband networks. While the NTIA is encouraging these states to relax laws prohibiting municipal broadband networks, Nevada is not pursuing any changes in state law, said Brian Mitchell, director of Nevada’s Technology Office. The state is, however, engaging with local communities as much as possible, including through bi-monthly meetings with community-led broadband teams. Over the next five years, Nevada’s Office of Science, Innovation, and Technology plans to expand fiber networks statewide so everyone can access affordable, reliable, and fast internet through the High-Speed NV initiative. The first phase of the initiative will focus on expanding high-speed internet access to more than 1,000 state and local government facilities, schools, and libraries that have been identified as having limited or unreliable internet access. A total of $192 million from the state’s Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, provided as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARPA), are to be distributed during the first phase. A further $200 million, from BEAD, will be distributed in the second phase of the project, which will focus on expanding high-speed internet access to homes and businesses. The state estimates that more than 450,000 households lack high-speed internet access lack access to high-speed internet.

The Telework Metrics and Cost Savings Act (H.R. 7951) would expand telework training for managers, require agencies to develop goals for telework participation, and collect data on productivity and cost savings from teleworking. The bill would require the Office of Personnel Management to publish guidance to assist agencies in performing those activities and to improve the reliability of telework data collected by the agency. CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 7951 would have an insignificant effect on direct spending and no effect on revenues over the 2023-2032 period. CBO has not estimated the discretionary costs of implementing the bill. The bill contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. Pay-As-You-Go procedures will also apply to this bill.