Affordability/Cost/Price

Much of Africa has gotten a taste of the internet thanks to cellular technology, but high-speed access remains scarce on the continent thanks to a lack of consumer spending power and a fractured, unreliable power grid. Cassava Technologies, a spinout of an African telecommunications firm, aims to change that equation. Africa is home to 54 countries and 1.3 billion people and covers an area larger than India, China and Western Europe combined. That's too big a chunk of the planet to be stuck with spotty, expensive internet access. Much of the continent now has cellular access.

As 2021 turned into 2022, the Federal Communications Commission transformed the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program into the Affordable Connectivity Program. Congress created the Affordable Connectivity Program through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and provided the FCC $14.2 billion to subsidize broadband service for low-income households. Broadband providers will receive up to $30/month (or up to $75/month if the household is on Tribal Land) for providing service to low-income households.

Nokia is using the unlicensed portion of the CBRS 3.5 GHz spectrum band to supply a private LTE network for a school district in San Joaquin Valley (CA). Nokia announced that it completed the first of two phases for the deployment. It’s working with AggreGateway, a small wireless engineering firm based in San Diego (CA). The network serves students in the Dos Palos Oro Loma (DPOL) school district of California. Located in the predominantly rural San Joaquin Valley, the district comprises five campuses and serves a population of 5,000 residents.

Gov Mike Parson (R-MO) continued efforts to push Missouri lawmakers to approve $400 million into broadband expansion. Parson said the project was the largest single investment in state history. Missouri ranked number 34 out of 50 states in broadband access. State officials said there were more than 147,000 unserved or underserved households and more than 392,000 Missourians without reliable internet access. BJ Tanksley is Missouri’s new Broadband Development Director.

Municipal broadband access will expand to parts of underserved unincorporated Larimer County (CO) thanks to a partnership between the county and the city of Loveland (CO). Larimer County’s Board of Commissioners approved an amendment to an existing agreement between Loveland and the county as part of their partnership to provide broadband services to parts of unincorporated Larimer County through Loveland Pulse, the city’s municipal broadband service.

Four Front Range (CO) communities are joining forces to provide high-speed internet to their residents. Berthoud, Mead, Milliken and Johnstown (CO) will work together to bring broadband internet into their towns. The four communities are working together to appeal to broadband providers. While individual small and rural towns may struggle to receive high-quality broadband, the united front is intended to bring in more potential providers.

The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act President Joe Biden signed in November 2021 included $65 billion to get high-speed internet to more people. Much of that funding is expected to be channeled into rural and low-income communities. Now, exactly how all those billions will be distributed is still being worked out. In the meantime, many states aren’t waiting. They are boosting broadband access using another pot of cash, tapping into pandemic relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act  — a law that included about $360 billion for broadband investments and support.

Pew Charitable Trusts assesses broadband grant scoring metrics, with side-by-side comparisons of the metrics used by Indiana, Minnesota, and Virginia. These three states represent both relatively well-established state broadband grant programs as well as
programs that updated their scoring systems in 2020 and 2021. Major points include:

The Pew Charitable Trusts provides information on the “challenge processes” in state broadband grant programs, with key features from a variety of states. Summary points include:

The Santa Cruz County (CA) Board of Supervisors voted in favor of two initiatives to better meet the needs of its public. First, supervisors allocated $500,000 in grant funding to Cruzio Internet with the agreement the company would expand broadband access to underserved populations across the county — an effort that will expand Cruzio's existing Equal Access Santa Cruz County project. Equal Access is a collaboration between Cruzio and the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County that has provided fast Internet to families who need it for a maximum of $15 a month.