Last May, we shared a dashboard we built to track how community networks were doing in California's Last-Mile Federal Funding Account broadband grant program. With a new round of winners recently announced, we've updated our dashboards to show who, where, and how much community networks are getting. In the first round, they were seeing unprecedented success, punching far above their weight in comparison to the monopolies (which have a long track record of success in landing the bulk of state broadband grant dollars across the country). 

We're happy to say that the latest round shows community networks doing equally well. In late 2025 and early 2026, California announced an additional nine grants. Every county in California has now received grant funding for last-mile broadband expansion. Two of the awards were multi-county projects, stretching to include counties that were also served through the first round of funding.

Hoopa Valley Utility Authority was a big winner again, selected for a nearly $40 million award to serve areas of Trinity and Humboldt Counties. The project, called Hoopa TRAIL for Hoopa Trinity Rural Access Initiative Linkup, will serve nearly two thousand locations with gigabit symmetrical speeds. Taken together, community networks secured half of the awards and funding announced in this round. Other awards went to the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, for a planned public-private partnership, Comcast, AT&T, a regional Internet service provider, and a unique nonprofit-private partnership. Altogether, over $110 million was awarded in this round of grants, bringing the running total in the program to $1.23 billion.

Vermont’s Communications Union Districts (CUDs), which were the subject of a 2024 ILSR report, continue to make steady inroads in delivering high-quality broadband access to long-neglected rural Vermont residents. 

That includes the Chittenden County Communication Union District (CCCUD), which recently announced the completion of a planned fiber extension into the heavily rural communities of Essex Town, Essex Junction, Jericho, Shelburne, Westford, and Williston.

The deployment was completed in partnership with Fidium Fiber, which says the expansion brought fiber optic connectivity to more than 1,900 homes and businesses across the six towns for the first time ever.

Users in these markets have the option of three tiers of service: a symmetrical 100 megabit per second (Mbps) tier for a promotional rate of $30 a month; a symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) tier for a promotional rate of $50 per month; and a symmetrical 2 Gbps option for a promotional rate of $60 per month. Those prices jump to $70, $110, and $125 per month when the promo period ends.

New Mexico’s Office of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE) has announced the completion of a landmark broadband infrastructure expansion project that delivered affordable next-gen broadband access to dozens of long-neglected homes in a remote subdivision in rural Chaves County.

According to the OBAE announcement, the successful completion of the Chaves County project is OBAE’s first grant project to reach 100 percent completion, and the first Connect New Mexico Pilot Program project funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Capital Projects Fund to reach the final stage.

“This project’s completion delivers on the state’s promise to connect New Mexico families in the most remote areas of the state,” said Andy Exell, OBAE’s ARPA Program Coordinator.

“For these dozens of homeowners to finally get high-speed internet is a life changer.”

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Like so many rural U.S. communities, residents of Chaves County were often deemed unprofitable to serve by entrenched private phone providers.

That changed in  2023 when OBAE awarded Artesia, New Mexico based Penasco Valley Telephone Cooperative Inc. (PVT) an ARPA grant of $487,000. Officials say construction included roughly 11 miles of pole-attached aerial fiber to the rural residences. With matching PVT funds, the broadband project’s total budget was $649,000.

The U.S. Treasury awarded New Mexico $117 million in grants through ARPA to expand and deploy broadband to unserved and underserved neighborhoods. 

Vienna, Maine recently launched its own municipal fiber network, finally bringing affordable next-generation broadband access to the small town’s 600 residents. As soon as service was made available, 240 of the town's 400 plus households immediately signed up for service, and the town’s focus has shifted to demonstrating the value of fast affordable access to remaining locals that regional incumbents are trying to lure away with temporary promotional offers.

The Vienna Broadband Authority recently told the Bangor Daily News it needs 270 consistent subscriber households to maintain financial viability, so they’ve taken to demonstrating high speed connectivity at the local firehouse in order to pique the public interest.

The Vienna network was made possible largely thanks to a $2.3 million grant in 2023 from the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA), which in turn was made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) passed by Congress. The town-owned network is being run in cooperation with Machias-based Axiom.

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Axiom is providing locals with three options for service: symmetrical 100 megabit per second (Mbps) service for $60 a month; symmetrical 250 Mbps service for $65 a month; and symmetrical 500 Mbps service for $110 a month. The town also offers yearly seasonal rates of $612, $663, and $1122, respectively.

The municipality’s pricing comes without usage caps, hidden fees, or long term contracts. Interested locals have to pay a $99 installation deposit that is refunded once a customer is connected.  

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has announced a dramatic expansion of the state’s Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP), resulting in an additional $36 million cash infusion for the growing number of creative, community-owned and operated fiber expansion projects in the state.

According to a state announcement, the existing MIP program, launched in early 2024, has already funded more than $268 million in assorted open access fiber projects across the state. A state broadband office dashboard tracks all active municipal projects funded to date.

That includes efforts like the growing open access municipal fiber network in Dryden, New York, which has been steadily delivering affordable next-gen fiber to the long-underserved rural communities of Dryden and nearby Caroline (population 3,321).

New York State officials say the $268 million in MIP grant funding has funded active projects across 24 New York counties, resulting in more than 2,300 miles of new fiber optic infrastructure and 68 new wireless hubs serving more than 96,000 homes and businesses. Most of this funding was made possible by the 2021 federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The MIP program is part of New York state’s billion dollar ConnectALL Initiative, and was specifically designed to support municipal broadband projects proven to be a viable, and increasingly popular, way to bring affordable, high-quality Internet service to long-neglected U.S. communities.

Superior, Wisconsin’s community-owned open access fiber network has gone live in its first two deployment neighborhoods, as the city works toward providing affordable next-generation fiber access to the city’s long under-served community of 26,000.

When we last checked in with Superior back in April, the city was working with Nokia for final configuration and testing before launch. Now, the municipal broadband network says its ConnectSuperior fiber network is live in its first two target neighborhoods in the northern part of the city (see the city’s latest deployment map).

The city’s open access network means that multiple broadband providers can compete over the same shared infrastructure. Historically such a model helps boost competition and drive down costs for both consumers and competitors. That’s already the case in Superior, where the city’s website lists two providers – Advanced Stream and Superion Networks – with more on the way.

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Advanced Stream is offering locals three tiers of service: a symmetrical 300 megabit per second (Mbps) tier for $63 a month; a symmetrical 650 Mbps tier for $75 a month; and a symmetrical one gigabit per second (Gbps) tier for $83 a month.

Superion is offering three tiers of service as well: a symmetrical 300 Mbps tier for $63 a month; a symmetrical 650 Mbps tier for $75 a month; and a symmetrical 1 Gbps tier for $85 a month. Both companies offer phone bundles for a modest additional surcharge.

Conexon Connect, the ISP arm of fiber broadband builder Conexon, says it has completed its new fiber build in Cairo, Georgia in close collaboration with Grady Electrical Membership Corporation (EMC).

The finished network brings affordable fiber access to 158,000 homes and businesses across the state, including Cairo (population 10,054). 

It’s Conexon Connect’s seventh completed broadband fiber to the home project in Georgia and twelfth completed broadband network overall since the ISP was created in 2021.

In January of 2023 Grady EMC was awarded a $9.3 million grant made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Grady announced its partnership with Conexon in March of 2023.

Grady EMC is technically the statewide trade association that serves Georgia’s 41 electric membership corporations. As we’re seeing across the country, these cooperatives are leveraging their century-old experience with rural electrification to push fiber into many rural areas long neglected by dominant regional telecom monopolies.

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“This project truly shows what's possible when a community comes together with a shared vision for a brighter, more connected future,” Grady EMC CEO John Long said in a statement.

Grady will be seeking additional funding opportunities to extend affordable fiber access to the cooperative’s 13,000 members across Grady, Decatur and Thomas counties.

*This is the first installment of an ongoing series we are calling Connected Complex looks at how states, local communities, and Internet service providers are working to address the often complex challenges involved in bringing high-speed Internet access to multi-dwelling units.

Massachusetts state leaders have announced a new $31.5 million investment to bring reliable, high-speed Internet access to residents in affordable and public housing statewide.

A key part of the major new investment initiative focuses on something that’s particularly challenging in the northeast: updating long outdated wiring in multiple-dwelling-units (MDUs) like apartments, condos, and housing developments, many of which were built before the advent of the Internet.

The funds are being provided by the Massachusetts Broadband Office’s (MBO) Residential Retrofit Program, which aims to deploy state-of-the-art broadband infrastructure to public and affordable housing properties across Massachusetts. MBI’s funding, in turn, was largely made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

In partnership with the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI), Gov. Maura Healey’s office awarded the grant money to four Internet service providers: Aervivo, Archtop Fiber, Comcast, and Community Broadband Networks FLX (CBN-FLX). All told, the funding is poised to deliver broadband access to 13,700 housing units across 60 Massachusetts municipalities.

As states struggle to readjust their plans to expand high-speed Internet access in the wake of the Trump administration “termination” of the Digital Equity Act, Vermont is working to address the multi-million dollar shortfall by aligning the state’s Digital Empowerment initiative with its newly established Affordable Long Drop Program.

The Affordable Long Drop Program was established to provide grants to eligible Internet service providers (ISPs) in order to cover the connection costs for Vermonters whose homes are beyond standard drop distances.

Typically, an ISP will pay for a standard drop, which is the final external link that connects a provider's distribution network to the end-user's location – a distance that most often spans a couple hundred feet or less.

In rural areas around the country, community-minded operators like telephone and electric cooperatives will often cover the first quarter of a mile. This has also been the case in Vermont, where many of the state’s Communications Union Districts (CUDs) have been footing the bill to cover as much as the first 2,000 feet of drop distance. But, as with any predominantly rural state, there are a number of homes located just beyond that 2,000 foot range.

The construction costs of extending fiber lines can get pricey the further the home is away from the main fiber routes. Vermont’s Affordable Long Drop Program aims to help pay for the drops costs of the last mile networks that are currently being built across the state to help ensure residents in harder-to-reach locations can still get Internet access.