Biden administration announces $40+ Billion grants for broadband internet access
The Biden administration today revealed new details about how $40+ billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will be spent in the years ahead to connect more Americans to high-speed internet. The funds will flow into a Commerce Department program with checks set to begin flowing to states early next year.
High-speed internet is no longer a luxury – it is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school, access health care, and to stay connected with family and friends. Yet, more than 8.5 million households and small businesses are in areas where there is no high-speed internet infrastructure, and millions more struggle with limited or unreliable internet options.
High-speed internet infrastructure deployment will be funded by the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program—a $42.45 billion grant program created in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the Department of Commerce. This announcement—the largest internet funding announcement in history—kicks off the three-week Administration-wide Investing in America tour, where President Biden, Vice President Harris, First Lady Jill Biden, Cabinet members, and Senior Administration Officials will fan out across the country to highlight investments, jobs, and projects made possible by President Biden’s economic agenda.
Highlights:
- Awards range from $27 million to over $3.3 Billion, with every state receiving a minimum of $107 million.
- 19 states received allocations over $1 billion with the top 10 allocations in Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
- With these allocations and other Biden administration investments, all 50 states, DC, and the territories now have the resources to connect every resident and small business to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by 2030.
Details related to the BEAD allocation for the states, D.C., and territories, as well as the total Federal investment in high-speed internet in each State and Territory are available here.
In addition to helping connect everyone in America to high-speed internet, this funding will support manufacturing jobs and crowd in private sector investment by using materials Made in America. For example, anticipating this major investment in high-speed internet infrastructure deployment, earlier this year, fiber optic cable manufacturers CommScope and Corning announced $47 million and $500 million expansions of their domestic manufacturing capacity, which will create hundreds of good-paying American jobs in North Carolina.
These investments are part of the nearly $500 billion in private sector manufacturing and clean energy investments spurred by the President’s Investing in America agenda. The Investing in America agenda represents the most significant upgrade to our nation’s infrastructure in generations—an investment larger than FDR’s Rural Electrification effort, Eisenhower’s effort to build the Interstate Highway system, and the construction of the Panama Canal.
President Biden’s American Rescue Plan also included over $25 billion for high-speed internet, including:
- The Department of Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund (CPF) provides $10 billion to states, territories, and Tribes for which high-speed internet is an eligible use. Today, over $7 billion has already been dedicated to high-speed internet deployment and connectivity across 45 states;
- The Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) delivered funding across the country to support the response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. About $8 billion is being used by states, territories, Tribes, and local governments for high-speed internet deployment and connectivity; and,
- The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) $7 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund program helped schools and libraries close the “homework gap,” providing schools and libraries with 10.5 million connected devices and over 5 million internet connections.
NTIA will issue a formal notice of allocation to recipients on June 30. Once they receive that notice, eligible entities (all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories) will have 180 days to submit initial proposals describing how they plan to run their grant programs. Initial proposals can be submitted beginning July 1st. Once NTIA approves a state’s initial proposal, that state will be able to request access to at least 20% of its BEAD allotment.
Additional information on Biden-Harris high-speed internet programs and funding is available at InternetForAll.Gov.
References:
The U.S. Department of Treasury on Friday awarded $195.7 million from the Capital Projects Fund (CPF) to Washington state, which the state said will help connect approximately 33,000 locations to high-speed broadband.
Washington plans to divvy the funds across three broadband infrastructure programs, with the bulk of the CPF money ($118.5 million) going towards Washington’s State Broadband Office grant program. That program aims to connect communities without any kind of internet service as well as those lacking access to speeds of 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.
The state will also allocate $43.7 million to its Public Works Board program as well as $23.8 million towards the Community Economic Revitalization Board Rural Broadband Program – both of which support broadband expansion in rural and Tribal areas.
Washington said the $196 million is its entire CPF allocation and the state estimates that investment will serve approximately 8% of locations still lacking high-speed internet access.
According to the Treasury Department, it’s now doled out $7 billion out of the CPF’s $10 billion allotment across 45 states. Meaning the federal government has dished out roughly $2 billion in CPF funds since March.
“This funding is a key piece of the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments to increase access to high-speed internet for millions of Americans and provide more opportunities to fully participate and compete in the 21st century economy,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo in a statement.
The Treasury Department began awarding CPF allotments to states last June. ISPs that use CPF funding are required to participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), the federal government’s $30 per month subsidy for low-income households.
Washington state’s CPF award comes a few weeks after the state’s broadband office announced grant awards for Ziply Fiber along with several cooperatives and public utility districts. The 19 projects are set to cover 14,794 locations across the state.
Separately, the White House on Monday plans to announce state allocations for NTIA’s $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Earlier this month, NTIA dished out $930 million as part of its Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program.
https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/washington-state-scores-196m-capital-projects-funds
AT&T and Charter Communications are best positioned to benefit from the multi-billion-dollar Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program based on state-by-state allocations and the presence of each operator in those states, reckon analysts that have broken down the numbers.
“The larger the presence an operator has in a state with a sizable allocation of BEAD funding, the greater the opportunity there is for it to see benefits from a build-out near its existing footprint and fill-in additional pockets across its DMAs [designated market areas] with edge-outs,” the analysts at ISI Evercore surmised in a research note. “In that context, we highlight that AT&T and Charter over-index to states that received the lion’s share of BEAD allocation.”
AT&T and Charter have 33% and 27%, respectively, of their residential broadband subs, come from the two top BEAD states – Texas and California – ISI Evercore pointed out.
https://www.lightreading.com/cable-tech/atandt-charter-have-biggest-bead-opportunity—studies/d/d-id/785515?