Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

I can think of only three sources of locations that the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program missed the first time around. One group of locations is those being turned back to State Broadband Offices when BEAD awardees decide not to accept a BEAD grant. The broadband offices have been trying to find other internet service providers to take these locations at the original award price. But I already know of several examples where there are no takers—at least at the dollar level of BEAD that was awarded after the Benefit of the Bargain round.

Broadband programs spend years in planning, mapping, applications, and approvals. But eventually, the work has to move from paper to the field. That is where Washington state finds itself now. Jordan Arnold, Director of the Washington State Broadband Office, discusses how the state’s broadband strategy is taking shape. Arnold stepped into the role in January 2026, just before Washington received federal approval for its final Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment proposal.

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program was designed to close the digital divide in the U.S., but the size and shape of that divide have changed dramatically since Congress created the program in November 2021. Private investment and other broadband programs have continued to connect locations, while BEAD, the largest-ever broadband grant program, has followed a circuitous path across two very different presidential administrations to finally get to the point of being able to dole out funds.

Since 2020, Congress has steered tens of billions of dollars, including more than $50 billion from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, through federal agencies to connect homes and businesses that lack high-speed internet access. Four agencies account for most of that money: the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Department of the Treasury.

Every unserved home and business deserves a broadband connection, and this notice gives states a new path to find the locations the first round of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program missed. We support the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's effort to true up the Federal Communications Commission's maps and ensure funding follows the households and small businesses still waiting for service. Congress recognized that universal connectivity requires investment in both the physical and human infrastructure of broadband.

The Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program’s initial investment is failing rural America. Delayed implementation, shifting guidance, cost constraints, and unrealistic funding assumptions have slowed progress, discouraged participation, and weakened a historic opportunity to bring long-overdue broadband service to rural communities. Directing further investment under the same misguided approach will not deliver universal connectivity to rural America.

For Headlines readers who got nervous for me this morning, I’m fine, but… After five years, today is my last day working at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. When I was in college, one of my professors told me to subscribe to a newsletter, Benton’s Daily Digest (or “Headlines,” to me and to many). I thought it was crazy that such a comprehensive resource was published each morning, five days a week. Less than a year later, it became my job to put Headlines together every day.

On September 3, 2026, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program Supplemental Deployment Policy Notice to allow states, territories, and the District of Columbia (known collectively as Eligible Entities) to access additional BEAD funding to address locations that may remain unserved due to defaults in other federal and/or state programs, misreporting by providers, and other changes to the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) broadband DATA maps since the completion of their federally approved

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) provided new guidance to Eligible Entities (States, Territories, and the District of Columbia) regarding the next step in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program implementation.

If the character Edward Cullen of the ubiquitous Twilight saga taught us anything (aside from the fact that Robert Pattinson’s hair can do no wrong), it is that being a heretic can be cool. In the series, the Volturi—the Vampiric Council—operates as an authoritative government dictating the terms of vampire life: encouraging slaughter of humans, forbidding certain romance, and eventually seeking the destruction of Edward and Bella’s baby. Cullen went against these vampire norms to protect his loved ones, doing so in a way that made many hearts flutter.