Tennessee

EPB, the Chattanooga, Tennessee, electric utility company has long been a hero in the broadband world because it was the first electric utility to offer 1 Gbps broadband to consumers. These days, it can offer speeds of 25 Gig. EPB has more than 200,000 energy customers and over 130,000 fiber customer.

Conexon Connect submitted compliance reports for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund locations in Mississippi, Florida, Missouri, Louisiana, Kentucky, Colorado, Arizona, Tennessee, and Illinois. Conexon Connect delayed its RDOF buildout in some states until state broadband offices finalized Broadband, Equity, Access & Deployment (BEAD) Program funding decisions. This delay, the company believes, was prudent because Conexon Connect’s network would require modification to account for any new BEAD-funded areas.

SpaceX is offering discounts for Starlink internet plans in Memphis, Tennessee, as thecompany endures blowback and legal challenges from opponents of its data centers in the area and neighboring Mississippi. Customers that opt in will be able to access Starlink service plans for half the monthly price, which can range from $55 to $130 per month. The discount can be shared with friends and family.

The City of Memphis’ Smart Memphis Fiber project represents one of the most innovative and consequential municipal broadband initiatives in the United States. Through a creative public-private partnership model that was approved by the City in 2024, Memphis has secured citywide fiber competition (meaning residents will have more than one high-speed internet provider to choose from) and a commitment to delivering fiber service to low-income neighborhoods.

This Policy Bulletin evaluates claims that Chattanooga’s EPB municipal broadband network generated large employment gains in Hamilton County (TN). First, this Bulletin shows that the source paper invoked to justify the employment narrative explicitly finds no statistically significant employment effects in urban counties; Hamilton County is an urban county. Second, using modern causal inference methods, this Bulletin directly evaluates labor-market outcomes in Hamilton County. Across employment and unemployment outcomes, no economically or statistically significant effects are found.

The Trump administration is pushing back on Republican-led AI bills in Nebraska and Tennessee, with sources familiar with the negotiations describing the outreach as pressure to weaken or

United Communications is advancing its long-term fiber expansion across Middle Tennessee with an $18.1 million award from Tennessee’s Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, accelerating new infrastructure projects that will bring high-speed connectivity to underserved rural communities across the region. The BEAD award will help connect approximately 1,800 currently unserved and underserved homes and businesses—representing roughly 4,500 residents—across Maury, Rutherford, Trousdale, Williamson, and Wilson counties to United’s fiber broadband network.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) at the U.S. Department of Commerce has approved 50 out of 56 Final Proposals from states and territories to ensure universal broadband access through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. “I am thrilled to announce that NTIA has approved 50 out of 56 Final BEAD Proposals,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth.

A recent report, From Gig City to Quantum City: The Value of Fiber Optic Infrastructure in Hamilton County, TN 2011-2035, quantifies the benefit of the citywide municipal fiber network to the City of Chattanooga (TN). The fiber network is operated by EPB, the electric and fiber utility owned by the City of Chattanooga.