Individuals who primarily Reside in a Rural Area

The Federal Communications Commission reports that 19.6 million Americans lack access to a fixed 100/20 Mbps broadband service. A nationwide audit using 109,473 internet service provider‑address tests from October 2024 to March  2025 finds the true figure closer to 26 million, exposing a 6.4 million-person (33 percent) undercount.

This DRAFT Report and Order would eliminate the professional engineer certification requirement for the biannual Broadband Data Collection (BDC) filings and instead allow the biannual filings to be certified by a qualified engineer.  An engineer certifying BDC filings would be considered a qualified engineer if they meet minimum experience and educational requirements relevant to broadband network design.  The Report and Order also clarifies that a certifying engineer does not need to be a full-time employee of the company filing BDC data.

"If I cared about subsidies," Elon Musk said in 2015, "I would have entered the oil and gas industry." Yet the history of Musk's business empire tells another story. Musk's companies have long been fueled by taxpayer money, whether in the form of massive government contracts, low-interest loans, tax breaks and other support that helped make Musk one of the world's richest people. Over the past two decades, firms run by Musk have received tens of billions of dollars in federal bac

House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY-02) and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson (R-NC-09) sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging the administration to quickly remove burdensome regulations that have stopped the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program from connecting any American to reliable broadband. “To address these issues, we introduced the Streamlining Program Efficiency and Expanding Deployment (SPEED) for BEAD Act, which outlines necessary reforms to BEAD.

The Trump Administration pulled the plug on Vermont's $5.3 million 'Digital Equity' program in May. The program would have bridged Vermont's digital divide, providing devices and digital training to people who cannot access the internet, making broadband more accessible and affordable to folks living in rural communities, low-income households and people facing other digital barriers. Now, some have been left behind. Federal officials claim that the program was created using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) framework. Vermont's Community Broadband Board says that is just not the case.

Although Phileas Fogg famously traveled around the world in 80 days, at a Senate Appropriations hearing, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick outlined a more ambitious task: completing Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funding by the end of 2025. Secretary Lutnick floated a new notice of funding opportunity (known as an NOFO) for the BEAD program with requirements for states to be “tech agnostic” or “tech neutral” and nevertheless claimed final awards could go out before the end of the year. The details remain scarce.

In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested plans to issue a new Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) asked, “Do you agree that it would be a huge waste of money and a disservice to Americans who need reliable internet service to restart a bidding and proposal process?” Sec Lutnick responded by saying, “The Biden administration had 30 months [for BEAD] and they did nothing.” He then suggested a new proposal process that would take 90 days.

Gigi Sohn, executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband, says that Trump’s reversal of the Digital Equity Act will result in more Americans being unable to access the Internet due to lack of resources or skills. “We will continue to have a massive digital divide in this country,” said Sohn.

Imagine being told that your state government has the funds to give your family an affordable high-speed Internet connection—not just this year, but every year for the next two centuries. Now, imagine that same government decides instead to run a fiber optic cable to a single house at the end of a long rural road. This is not a thought experiment. It’s the real tradeoff now playing out across the country under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.

NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association, in partnership with several rural stakeholders, sent a letter to members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees in support of sufficient 2026 funding for the telecommunications programs overseen by the Rural Utilities Service within the Department of Agriculture. The organizations wrote, "Congress’s continued support for funding RUS telecommunications and broadband programs remains vital. A strong public-private partnership is essential to America’s quest to secure and maintain global broadband preeminence.