Texas

Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced that Texas’ final proposal for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, a roadmap for investing approximately $1.3 billion to close the state’s digital divide, has been approved by the federal government.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced the approval of Texas’ Final Proposal to deliver universal broadband access throughout the state through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. The announcement makes Texas the 19th Final Proposal approved to date. Nineteen states and territories have been approved by NTIA, generating savings of $8 billion. In total, 53 of the 56 states and territories have submitted Final Proposals.

Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) announced that Google has signed the historic $1.375 billion settlement agreement with the State of Texas, marking the conclusion of two of the largest data privacy enforcement actions ever brought by a single state against the tech giant.

“[Astound has] been awarded a lot of BEAD projects in the state of Washington as well as Oregon, and that is going to drive a lot of our expansion in the next two to three years.” That’s what Astound Senior Vice President of Operations Jared Sonne, who handles the company’s West Coast operations, said when asked about the provider’s recent provisional wins for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Astound has been provisionally awarded about $112 million in BEAD awards in Oregon, $166 million in Texas, and more than $100 million in Washington (largely as part of a con

Despite the federal government shutdown, states across the country are making strides on their own broadband and digital equity initiatives. Four states in particular caught our eye this week. Many of these initiatives were designed to work in tandem with federal investments, especially those created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or to fill gaps created by the sunsetting of crucial programs, like the ACP.

The Texas Broadband Development Office will soon submit its final proposal to the federal government to invest approximately $1.3 billion in federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program funds.

Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment results from the state of Texas were finally published for comment, revealing that the state tapped SpaceX's Starlink as the single-largest internet service provider winner by number of locations. Texas will award SpaceX $108.8 million to reach 63,963 of the state's 240,200 broadband serviceable locations with low-Earth orbit satellite. The state chose to spend just $1.3 billion of its original $3.3 billion BEAD allocation.

With at least 120 people dead, including over 24 children, due to flooding in Central Texas, Fierce Network took a look at how the Big 3 operators are approaching emergency cellular coverage in the Hill Country region.