Universal Broadband

U.S. fiber broadband deployment is accelerating, and CostQuest’s newest fiber focus report offers a forward-looking view of where fiber coverage is expanding, who is building it, and how federal funding is reshaping the competitive map. Fiber is now serving 58.7 percent more U.S. homes and businesses than it did four years ago, with more than 26.6 million Broadband Serviceable Locations gaining fiber access since Version 1 of the Fabric, including 6 percent growth in just the past six months.

Gov Jeff Landry (R-LA), ConnectLA, REV Fiber, state and local leaders, and community members joined in Central for a groundbreaking celebrating the country's largest broadband build to date, funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. The project will be delivered by REV Fiber, providing reliable, high-speed internet access to 2,840 locations in East Baton Rouge Parish.

For over four decades, the Lifeline program has helped Americans get online and stay online, and that support matters even more now, with rising prices, a country at war, and nearly half of Americans struggling to afford the cost of living. This enforcement action is a targeted and responsible step that holds the providers who committed fraud accountable while exposing the weaknesses in our own systems that made that fraud possible.

States have yet to receive lists of locations that will be eligible for an additional round of broadband grant funding. “We may not see it until sometime in November, perhaps,” said Glen Howie, head of Arkansas’ broadband office. “I think they’re waiting on the June data to take another look at their lists and see what that looks like.”

The Oklahoma Broadband Office is celebrating the completion of eight broadband infrastructure projects by Indian Electric Cooperative that will expand fiber-optic connectivity across several rural Oklahoma communities. The projects were funded through Oklahoma’s American Rescue Plan Act State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund broadband program. IEC received approximately $17.7 million for four last-mile and four middle-mile projects. 

On June 4, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, seeking comment on “measures the Commission can take…to better protect children when using E-Rate funded networks, including to limit screen time.” In response, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration held a virtual listening session, FCC’s E-Rate and Screen Use NPRM, on September 16, 2026.

Governments spend billions of dollars to bring broadband to places that lack it. This report asks how much of the new service in the places six programs came from the subsidies, and how much would have arrived anyway. We compare the areas each program funded with similar areas it did not fund, track both over time, and call the difference the program’s effect. The main measure is access, whether a location can buy at least 100/20 Mbps from a wired or licensed wireless provider.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the E-Rate program, asking if E-Rate is still necessary and how the program should change. This proceeding could drastically impact the work of the schools and libraries that rely on E-Rate funding. Every state has E-Rate coordinators that help schools and libraries navigate the federal program.

The AI race is already well underway at the largest network operators. But for smaller broadband providers, the questions are often more basic: Do we have the resources for this? Where is it on our list of priorities? Where do we even start? Lou Borelli is CEO of the National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC), a cooperative comprised of cable operators, ILECs, CLECs, and other independent broadband and pay-TV service providers.

Our goal at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is universal, meaningful connectivity. Under our logo, we say that broadband builds opportunities and strengthens communities. But we haven’t been living under a rock. We know technology does not always build opportunity or strengthen communities. And right now, a real bleakness surrounds technology and what it is doing to us—or might do to us. If you work in digital inclusion, that can give you pause. What exactly are we working to include people in?