Universal Broadband

Vermont’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program is now accepting proposals from Internet Service Providers to implement Vermont’s $239 million, federally funded program to deploy broadband internet service throughout the state. The VT-BEAD Full Proposal portal will close at 11:55pm on April 16, 2025.

A bevy of House Republicans lined up at a recent subcommittee hearing to bemoan the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, minutes after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced he would conduct a “rigorous review” of the effort to close the digital divide. While that hearing turned into another Washington food fight, among state officials, BEAD still appears to have plenty of bipartisan support.

Rep Rick Allen (R-GA-12) reintroduced the Broadband Expansion and Deployment Fee Equity and Efficiency Act of 2025, or "BEAD FEE Act." This legislation will improve transparency in the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment Program—allowing accountability for application fees. The bill restricts recipients of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants from charging fees related to the deployment of broadband infrastructure.

This study investigates the impacts of 23 US Department of Agriculture Community Connect grant projects approved in fiscal years 2017–2019 on measured broadband download and upload speeds during 2019–2022 using program data, Ookla Speedtest data, and other data. We find that these projects had a positive impact on upload speed but not download speed, increasing upload speeds in project areas by an average of about 28 percent across the study periods. We find larger impacts on upload speed of projects that supported fiber-to-the-household than other projects and larger impacts in some geogra

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Broadband Policy and Development (BPD) Office was created in 2023 with a commitment to addressing the internet infrastructure challenges in CNMI. Under this commitment, the CNMI BPD Office assumed the responsibility of spearheading CNMI's efforts to secure federal support, like the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Digital Equity Capacity Grant, and coordinate the effective utilization of broadband funding for residents.

Patients across the rural South, Appalachia, and remote West are most often unable to make a video call to their doctor or log into their patient portals. Both are essential ways to participate in the U.S. medical system. In 2025, more than $42 billion allocated in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is expected to begin flowing to states as part of a national “Internet for All” initiative launched by the Biden administration.

The Idaho Commission for Libraries, public libraries and partners, and the people of Idaho are once again caught in the culture war’s crosshairs. There’s been a last-minute effort by some members of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee to eliminate the $6.3 million that has been appropriated by Congress to implement the Digital Access for All Idahoans Plan.

On March 4, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar wrote to Reps Craig Goldman (R-TX) and August Pfluger (R-TX) expressing his desire to quickly put Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment funds to work and return unallocated funds to the US Treasury. "As a passionate advocate for conservative financial management, I am committed to responsibly using taxpayer dollars and returning any unallocated funds back to the U.S. Treasury.

Under the Biden Administration, the Federal Communications Commission expanded the E-Rate broadband subsidy program to provide free Wi-Fi on school buses and Wi-Fi hotspot devices for off-campus use by school-age children, despite lacking congressional authorization. This expansion wastes taxpayer money and encroaches on parental authority over children’s screen use and should be ended.

Vermont Community Broadband Board is sponsoring a new Broadband Technician Pre-Apprenticeship Training in partnership with North Country Career Center. It will be comprehensive training for an entry level broadband network technician. The first three-week course will be offered in Montpelier starting March 26 and is available to participants at no cost. The training starts as Vermont is well on its way to making fiber broadband available to every Vermonter.