Vineland, New Jersey officials say they’ve secured a $3.7 million grant from the state that will help expand fiber and wireless broadband access to the city of 62,000. Local officials are hopeful the grant is just the beginning steps toward dramatic expansion of affordable access.

Vineland’s new grant was made possible by the New Jersey Broadband Infrastructure Deployment Equity (NJBIDE) grant program. NJBIDE will be delivering $40 million in broadband grants via the state’s Capital Projects Fund (CPF), made largely possible by the 2021 federal passage of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

NJBIDE grants prioritize fiber optic infrastructure of 100 megabytes per second (Mbps) and mandates the provision of at least one low-cost option (not specifically defined by New Jersey) to serve low income communities – something increasingly important in the wake of the federal government’s retreat from efforts to ensure equitable and affordable broadband. (Still early in the process, the city has not yet determined the exact pricing and service tiers the network will offer once construction is complete).

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A 2024 city proposal indicates that city leaders want to spend between $35 and $40 million to create a citywide broadband network, starting with a citywide fiber ring. The city paid for a viability study from Bonfire that found that at least 42 percent of the City does not have access to viable, quality, affordable broadband service.

In the wake of a federal abandonment of most meaningful Internet equality efforts, California municipalities continue to take the fight for equitable broadband access into their own hands. 

That includes Sonoma County, California, where county officials have freshly greenlit expanded plans to provide free broadband access to low income residents.

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Target: Affordable Housing

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors recently announced that it has approved a list of new affordable housing sites that are eligible to receive free Internet for one year.

According to the county, 556 low-income Sonoma County households across 10 different housing locations should qualify for the free broadband service.

The deployments are being made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which continues to result in some fairly transformative fiber deployments countrywide.

“The Board has prioritized finding creative solutions to broadband infrastructure development in Sonoma County,” Board of Supervisors Chair Lynda Hopkins says of the effort.

“This free internet program is a step toward equity as we continue to pursue public funding and strategic partnerships that can finally close the digital divide facing many of our shared communities.”

In early 2023, Dryden, New York, formally launched the town’s municipal broadband network, becoming the first municipality in the state to provide residents with direct access to affordable, publicly owned fiber.

A year and a half later, and the town of 14,500 says they’ve just signed up their 400th subscriber and continue to make steady progress expanding the popular network into rural enclaves in and around Dryden long deemed “unprofitable” by regional telecom monopolies.

Dryden Fiber Executive Director David Makar tells Ithaca-based local news outlet 607 News Now that the first year and a half of operations focused on building the core fiber ring around the city.

They’ve since shifted to the time-consuming task of extending last mile fiber access out to rural unserved and underserved homes in Dryden and nearby Caroline (population 3,321).

“There’s about 500 households between Dryden and Caroline that if they want to get online – it’s dial up modems, like it’s the year 2000,” Makar says. “Since we are very rural…there’s no easy way to get a lot of these houses,” he notes, indicating that the logistics and permissions for rural pole attachments have been unsurprisingly time consuming.

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Makar said there’s about 800 homes currently waiting for access in many of these rural areas.

For decades U.S. broadband policymaking has been plagued by inaccurate and badly-managed data that has significantly harmed efforts to not just track U.S. broadband deployment, but ensure that billions in taxpayer dollars are being wisely spent to address the problem.

From inaccurate broadband mapping data and an over-reliability on industry-provided coverage claims, to inconsistent broadband definitions and patchwork federal oversight, a new study by the Pew Charitable Trusts examined decades of U.S. broadband policy, and data analysis and found plenty of room for improvement.

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According to a 2022 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, there have been 133 programs across 15 federal agencies supporting and funding U.S. broadband deployment efforts, propped up by more than $44 billion in taxpayer dollars from 2015 to 2020 alone.

ILSR studies have historically shown those funds haven’t always been spent wisely; often being dumped into the laps of the very same regional telecom monopolies whose attacks on competition and government oversight resulted in substandard access in the first place.

There’s billions more waiting in the wings: as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), $25 billion was specifically earmarked for broadband expansion.

Empower Broadband, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Virginia-based Mecklenburg Electrical Cooperative, says it has successfully deployed affordable fiber access to more than 7,500 subscribers across long-neglected and underserved portions of the Old Dominion state.

Mecklenburg Coop, created in 1938, serves 31,000 residential and business electrical customers across portions of nine Southside Virginia counties and five northern North Carolina counties. Like many cooperatives, Mecklenburg and Empower are leveraging generations-old experiences at rural electrification to migrate into the broadband business.

In 2022, the coop broke ground on a $154 million initiative to bring high-speed internet to 14,634 unserved and underserved locations in Halifax, Mecklenburg, and the southern portions of Charlotte and Brunswick counties. As of today, the Mecklenburg fiber network consists of 2,900 miles of fiber and passes by 23,443 locations, with additional expansion planned.

Baltimore city leaders have issued a request for proposals (RFP) for a partner willing to help the city’s ongoing efforts to expand affordable broadband access to marginalized city residents.

According to the RFP, the city’s latest efforts would help bring affordable, high-speed Internet to over 4,100 new housing units spread across eight different public housing communities.

“The RFP is part of Baltimore's Broadband Access Initiative, a citywide effort aligned with our broader Digital Inclusion Strategy to close the digital divide – starting with communities that have been historically underserved,” Baltimore Communications Manager Rafael McFadden says of the effort.

Data indicates that Baltimore, population 565,000, sees some of the highest rates of digital disconnectivity in the nation. Over 96,000 Baltimore households lack wireline Internet service, and 75,000 city residents lack access to a desktop or laptop computer.

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Baltimore has used American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to create a $5 million Digital Equity Fund grant program, which is driving partnerships with local nonprofits to expand access and improve local digital literacy. The city’s digital equity report, released last March, details the progress the city has made in bridging the digital divide over the last two years.

In addition to numerous other initiatives, the city says it continues to expand its public Wi-Fi network, FreeBmoreWiFi.

Clallam County, Washington and Astound Broadband have begun construction on a major new joint partnership that will bring affordable fiber access to more than 1,500 homes across the largely rural Northwestern part of The Evergreen State.

In a joint announcement, Astound states that it will be deploying more than 100 miles of fiber across long-neglected Clallam County, starting with a 15-mile deployment along the State Route 112 Highway corridor, beginning just west of Port Angeles.

The deployment is a joint collaboration between The Public Utility District (PUD) No. 1 of Clallam County, Astound Broadband, and the Northwest Open Access Network (NOANet), a nonprofit coalition developed by regional Washington Communications Utility Districts (CUD) to bring more reliable, affordable fiber access to neglected rural Washington communities.

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Clallam county uses the NOANet fiber optic system for real-time metering, energy management, load control, and networking among remote utility facilities, though they’re keen to leverage the open access network to help provide last mile residential service.

The new $22 million fiber investment is being funded by a combination of a $16 million grant from the the Washington State Broadband Office made possible by the American Rescue Project Act (ARPA), $4.5 million from the Washington State Department of Commerce Public Works Board Broadband Program, and $1.7 million in funding from Clallam County.

The expansion will provide last mile fiber access to at least 1,500 new local residents, but will also prioritize bringing fiber to fire houses, schools, libraries, medical clinics, and other key anchor institutions in the county of 78,000.

Just 40 miles north of the heart of Silicon Valley, the City of Oakland has its sights set on implementing an ambitious Broadband Master Plan.

Dubbed the OaklandConnect project – unanimously approved on May 20 by the Oakland City Council – the plan calls for the construction of a city-owned open access fiber network to expand affordable broadband connectivity to over 33,000 households that city surveys indicate are languishing without home Internet service.

While Oakland is served by Comcast and AT&T mostly (with a smattering of Sonic and T-Mobile hotspots), the service in many areas is substandard, expensive, or both – in a city where surveys indicate affordability as the primary reason so many do not have home Internet service.

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Once the East Bay city of 436,000 completes network construction, it would be one of the largest publicly-owned open access networks serving a major metro area in the nation – and may serve as inspiration for other large cities to follow suit with a model that’s been proven to bring affordable local Internet choice in monopoly-dominated markets.  

Construction crews have begun work on Fort Bragg’s long-awaited municipal fiber network, which will ultimately bring affordable fiber to the California city of 7,000.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be $17 million. Of that, $10 million will be paid for by a Last Mile Federal Funding Account (FFA) grant from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), awarded in February to help fund the construction of a Middle Mile Broadband Network (MMBN) that will run directly through the heart of Ft. Bragg.

The remaining project costs will be paid for by a $7 million, 20-year loan at 4.85 percent from EverBank, recently approved by the Fort Bragg city council.

“This project is a cornerstone for the future of Fort Bragg,” City Manager Isaac Whippy said of the milestone. “Reliable, high-speed internet is no longer a luxury – it’s a necessity. With this investment, we’re closing the digital divide and making Fort Bragg a more connected, competitive, and inclusive community.”

According to a city announcement, Ft. Bragg’s citywide fiber network, 170 miles north of San Francisco, is being designed with a centralized data hub and 15 Distribution Areas (DAs). Using horizontal directional drilling, crews will install conduit and fiber underground – primarily beneath sidewalks and alleys – connecting to a fiber terminal located near the edge of the city’s right-of-way at each property.

When California announced in 2021 that it would open a last-mile broadband grant program seeded with $2 billion, it was something of a watershed moment.

The Last-Mile Federal Funding Account (FFA) broadband program,* as it was called, instantly became one of the largest state-administered broadband grant programs ever. Along with other broadband programs overseen by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the FFA program sought to significantly close the digital divide by ensuring that at least 98 percent of households had broadband access.

Municipalities, cooperatives, Tribal entities and community-based nonprofit networks seized this opportunity to take charge of their digital futures, submitting nearly one hundred applications in more than 40 counties across the state.

As grant announcements began rolling out in June of 2024, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) began tracking where that money was going and, specifically, the kinds of applicants that were successful in the program. What emerged was indisputable: California’s Federal Funding Account broadband program was an unprecedented success for community networks.

At communitynetworks.org, we have published numerous stories highlighting innovative and successful applications, including projects by Plumas-Sierra Telecommunications, the City of Huntington Park, the City of Oakland, Cold Springs Rancheria, and the City of Indio.

Today we are releasing a new two-part dashboard based on the CPUC’s data that helps visualize the success of community-based projects in this transformative state program. (The CPUC also has a very helpful interactive dashboard with more detail on each project, but it does not share our focus on community networks). Hover on each visualization within this dashboard for additional detail.