Broadband is the future of New Hampshire, we reported in June as the state was one of the first to win approval from the U.S. Treasury for plans to use Capital Projects Fund support to extend the reach of broadband networks. On September 8, we learned that New Hampshire is once again leading the way—now it is the first state to gain approval for a second wave of Capital Projects Fund support. New Hampshire's plans are designed to connect 80% of locations in the state still lacking high-speed internet access. In June we learned of New Hampshire's Broadband Contract Program, which offers broadband service providers a financial incentive to bring service to unserved and underserved addresses in the state—areas/addresses where it may be financially detrimental for providers to attempt to expand. At the time, New Hampshire hoped that the Broadband Contract Program could connect half of the state's unserved locations with $50 million (40%) of the state's Capital Projects Fund allotment. Recently Treasury approved New Hampshire’s second plan to invest in broadband infrastructure to provide high-speed internet to locations that lack access to adequate service. In total, New Hampshire is using $122 million—100% of its Capital Projects Fund funding—for broadband infrastructure to reach an estimated 24,000 locations, or 80% of locations still lacking high-speed internet access in the state. In total, New Hampshire's plans for Capital Projects Fund support will help connect more than 24,000 homes and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet.

North Carolina is currently putting to work over a billion dollars from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding through a number of programs, including the Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) grants to connect the 1.1 million households in the state unable to access the internet. Around $380 million in GREAT funding is designed to incentivize deployments to unserved rural parts of the state. The state also has a Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) program to address high-cost areas where service providers are traditionally reluctant to go along with money going to utility pole replacement, broadband mapping, and digital literacy, with the ARPA spending leading to future success. By 2025, the state government wants 98% of North Carolina households to have access to high-speed internet and an 80% subscription rate statewide, using specific and targeted investments in disadvantaged communities. It also wants a 100% subscription rate for households with school-age children to eliminate the “homework gap” in the state.
 

Syracuse, NY, is requesting proposals for the design, implementation, and maintenance of a municipal broadband network. The pilot program, which will be paid for through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, aims to help bridge the digital divide by providing affordable internet for low-income residents, while also supporting smart city applications. Over a quarter of Syracuse households lack internet access and nearly 45 percent lack access to internet speeds needed to support multiple users. The pilot network should offer speeds of at least 100 megabits per second (Mbps) and will target households in census tracts with the lowest rates of internet access. Syracuse received $123 million overall in ARPA funding and the amount that will be allocated to the broadband pilot will depend on proposals received. The city will look to expand community broadband in the future with additional federal and state funding, and part of the RFP requirement is for a scalable solution with a sustainable financial model. The city will consider a model where it owns the infrastructure or shares ownership with a partner.

 Nokia has partnered with Ready.net – makers of the Broadband.money platform – to help local broadband providers connect unserved and underserved communities. Nokia will provide tutorials, blueprint network designs, grant expertise, and equipment planning tools for inclusion in Broadband.money’s portal. Nokia will add its expertise and market-leading innovation to the platform, accessible to users in the form of tutorials, blueprint network designs, and tools to help work out the equipment they will need, further simplifying the grant application process. Broadband.money provides geospatial insights, predictive analytics, business intelligence, broadband grant templates, and empirical data in a collaborative, and easy-to-use interface. Successful grant applications for funding programs require comprehensive data analysis of the proposed service area, from socio-economic makeup to existing broadband connectivity available to residents, information on community anchor institutions and businesses, and physical information such as flooding risks and existing network assets.

The White House convened a listening session with experts and practitioners on the harms that tech platforms cause and the need for greater accountability. The Biden-Harris Administration announced the following core principles for reform:

1. Promote competition in the technology sector.
2. Provide robust federal protections for Americans’ privacy.
3. Protect our kids by putting in place even stronger privacy and online protections for them, including prioritizing safety by design standards and practices for online platforms, products, and services.
4. Remove special legal protections for large tech platforms. 
5. Increase transparency about platform’s algorithms and content moderation decisions. 
6. Stop discriminatory algorithmic decision-making. 

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau announces that it is implementing additional measures to strengthen program integrity surrounding the enrollment of households in the Affordable Connectivity Program based on a Benefit Qualifying Person (BQP). First, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) has underway development work to make necessary changes to prevent improper enrollment in the National Verifier system, specifically to strengthen and improve the detection of instances where multiple households attempt to enroll in the program using the same BQP. Second USAC has already increased program integrity reviews related to enrollments based on a BQP. As a result of this work, USAC has instituted a process for holding payments to limit the amount of potentially improper payments disbursed. USAC is also identifying and de-enrolling households that enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program based on the same BQP as another household that enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program.

Lumen Technologies completed one major business divestiture last month and are close to wrapping another. Company CFO and EVP Chris Stansbury said the pair of deals will help the company allocate resources to other products at a time when Lumen is starting to see big growth opportunities. “The company is going to get smaller before it gets bigger again,” Stansbury said. But he added that shedding businesses–the recent sale of Lumen’s Latin America business and the pending sale of ILEC properties to Apollo Global Management–will allow Lumen to invest more efficiently across its remaining products and services. Stansbury said that as a smaller company Lumen also will continue to examine its corporate overhead cost structure for opportunities to control costs, but he emphasized that the company “sees a pathway to growth” over the next two to three years.