In November 2021, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau sought comment on a range of issues related to modifications and changes in transitioning the EBB Program to the Affordable Connectivity Program established by Congress in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. To create a record that would allow the FCC to promulgate rules by the statutory deadline of January 14, 2022, and consistent with congressional directive, the Bureau established a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding with comments due December 8, 2021, and reply comments due December 28, 2021. In light of the approaching statutory deadline and the FCC’s desire to receive targeted and timely input from a broad cross-section of the affected public, Chairwoman Rosenworcel announced that extraordinary circumstances exist to warrant the discretionary release of a draft Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, including draft rules, which will be available to the public soon. Accordingly, the Bureau made modifications to how the ex parte rules will apply to this proceeding given the forthcoming public release of the draft Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The FCC modifies the ex parte rules in the Affordable Connectivity Program proceeding to prohibit any presentations after January 11, 2022, at 5 pm EST. Summaries of oral presentations made on Jan 10-11 must be filed no later than 12 pm EST on Jan 12, 2022.

The US Department of the Treasury started disbursing State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to state, local, territorial, and Tribal government recipients on May 10, 2021. A subset of these recipients were required to submit initial reports on August 31, 2021. Treasury is processing these reports and will make them publicly available soon. In the meantime, highlights from the Recovery Plan Performance Reports submitted by recipients include both immediate and long-term plans across eligible use categories. Italicized portions are direct quotes from jurisdictions’ Recovery Plans. The COVID–19 public health emergency has underscored the importance of universally available, high-speed, reliable, and affordable broadband coverage. Millions of Americans rely on the internet to participate in critical activities such as schooling, healthcare, and work. Communities or households facing economic insecurity before the pandemic were less able to participate in remote work or education due to the inequities in access to reliable and affordable broadband infrastructure. Recognizing the need for such connectivity, some jurisdictions reported plans to invest in broadband infrastructure to expand service to currently unserved or underserved populations. See examples from Delaware, Colorado, and Virginia.

Over 230 communities have applied for National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Broadband Infrastructure Program grants. But community leaders increasingly say they’re facing costly, unnecessary challenges from incumbent broadband providers, who are exploiting unreliable US broadband maps to overstate existing coverage and defend the status quo. The NTIA’s $288 million grant program – and the looming $42 billion broadband infrastructure investment plan – will help bring affordable broadband to the roughly 20-30 million Americans without broadband, and the 83 million Americans currently living under a broadband monopoly. In Grafton County (NH) 39 municipalities are part of a growing list of communities exploring home-grown broadband alternatives. They represent a grassroots movement driven by frustration with market failure that accelerated during the Covid-19 crisis. In response they’ve bonded together to apply for a $26.2 million NTIA grant to improve the region’s substandard broadband.

Lumen plans to increase locations reached by fiber from the current 2.5 million to 12 million, representing a five-times increase over the company’s traditional deployment rate according to President and CEO Jeff Storey. Those deployments target the 16 states that Lumen will retain after plans to sell its local exchange business in 20 states to Apollo Funds are completed. That transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2022. More than two-thirds of the markets that Lumen will retain (70 percent) are in metro areas, where the company is targeting a deployment cost below $1,000 per location. Like other broadband providers that have relied, in large part, on traditional copper network infrastructure, Lumen has been losing broadband customers in recent years. The company hopes that its investment in fiber will reverse that trend and has set a goal of returning to revenue growth within two to three years. “Fiber wins,” Storey said. “If you are competing with any other technology, fiber wins.”