Federal Agency

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved Delaware’s Final Proposal for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Internet for All” initiative to connect everyone in America to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service. Delaware’s Final Proposal outlines its plan for using the more than $107 million in allocated BEAD funding to connect 5,721 households and businesses.

BJ Tanksley has been the director of Missouri’s broadband office since 2022 and has lived and breathed rural broadband for even longer. Previously, Tanksley was director of state and local legislative affairs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, where he served on a committee that developed a proposal for a program that would cover some of the costs of deploying high-speed broadband in rural areas where it wasn’t available.

Arizona has set January 6 to February 5 as the Round 1 application window in their Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program deployment process. The state has been allotted $993.1 million in the program. Arizona’s BEAD Program will be administered by the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA).

The National Telecommunications Administration (NTIA) awarded the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services (DAS) Commission for Educational Technology over $9 million in Digital Equity Capacity Grant funding towards implementing the state's Digital Equity Plan.

At the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state officials, the Federal Communications Commission has boots on the ground through the deployment of spectrum survey teams to assess the impact to cellular communications in Los Angeles County. This data is used to identify communications gaps, which informs emergency response activities and identifies where communications assets are needed.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved Louisiana’s Final Proposal for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Internet for All” initiative to connect everyone in America to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service. Louisiana’s Final Proposal outlines its plan for using the more than $1.3 billion in allocated BEAD funding to connect 140,030 households and businesses. Louisiana is the first state to have its Final Proposal approved.

The incoming Trump administration should not pause the government’s $42.5 billion effort to end the digital divide, said Brandy Reitter, head of Colorado’s broadband office. There’s been speculation the Trump administration might alter some Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rules the GOP has been strongly critical of, from its fiber preference to its low-cost service requirement for low-income households served on subsidized infrastructure.

Private and federal broadband investments have achieved universal broadband deployment throughout the United States. Still, barriers that prevent some households from accessing the Internet remain. This lack of broadband adoption, not lack of deployment, is the central reason for the remaining digital divide. Therefore, identifying and addressing barriers to broadband adoption should be the core of broadband policy. One major barrier to broadband adoption is whether low-income households can afford it.

As they entered office at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2021, Xavier Becerra and his allies had a plan to restore Americans’ faith in the nation’s beleaguered public health agencies. Four years later, the pandemic has receded. But trust in America’s health agencies has not recovered.

The Washington Post recently published an article detailing how NewsGuard, whose journalists rate the reliability of news sources, has become the target of incoming Trump administration regulators and far-right Republicans in Congress.