A new provider named Halo Fiber is hoping to leverage hundreds of millions in recent Alabama middle mile broadband network grants to extend affordable fiber broadband to state residents long stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.

The new provider says it’s not quite ready to reveal full launch details (including target markets, speeds, or pricing), but told ILSR it should enter its first four fiber markets later this year thanks in part to a flood of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding in the state.

“We will be releasing pricing and target markets early this summer in May or June,” Halo Co-founder and CEO Brian Snider told ILSR. “Speeds are still being finalized as well but they will be symmetrical from 250 up and down to multi gig options.”

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Halo says its primary focus will be to partner with public and private entities to build fast and affordable broadband networks, empower access to better education, telehealth, and economic opportunities, and ensure quality customer service in neglected markets.

“Ten years ago, myself and other members of the Halo team worked on an initiative that identified infrastructure gaps across the entire state,” Snider said in additional comments to BamaBuzz.

“We found that was a big gap in middle mile connectivity – especially in Alabama’s Black Belt where there was almost no high speed infrastructure,” he added.

Nearly a fifth of Alabama residents – or just over a million people – lack access to reliable high speed Internet.

In the City of Sherwood, a mostly residential bedroom community 16 miles south of Portland, officials have been quietly cultivating a digital vineyard across Oregon’s “Gateway to Wine Country.”

As part of its on-going work to build out a citywide fiber network, Sherwood Broadband recently secured a $9 million grant from the Oregon Broadband Office Broadband Deployment Program (BDP) to continue expanding Sherwood’s municipally-owned network into neighboring rural communities just outside city limits.

The grant award is part of $132 million in federal Rescue Plan funds the state is doling out to an array of community-owned broadband initiatives for 16 projects across 17 counties.

Award winners include Beacon Broadband, a subsidiary of the Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative ($19.4 million); Jefferson County ($19.2 million); Douglas Fast Net, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Douglas Electric Cooperative ($8.5 million); the Idaho-based member-owned cooperative Farmers Mutual Telephone Company, which offers broadband service in Malheur County, OR ($18.9 million); and a handful of independent providers like Blue Mountain Networks ($6.5 million) and Ziply Fiber ($10.2 million), recently acquired by Bell Canada.

The Oklahoma Broadband Office (OBO) says local providers have broken ground on several new grant-fueled fiber projects designed to provide high-speed Internet access to long unserved or underserved communities across wide swaths of the Sooner state.

According to two different announcements by the state’s broadband office, the OBO recently greenlit $65.9 million in new fiber expansion initiatives in the Southern part of the state, as well as another $24.6 million in deployments for the northern-central part of the state.

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The fiber upgrade projects were made possible via $158 million in Capital Projects Fund grants made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The grants are expected to help fund more than 50 projects in 28 counties.

In the Southern part of the state, $43.2 million in federal grants – plus $22.8 million in matching funds – will connect over 2,000 unserved homes and businesses in partnership with Medicine Park Telephone, Oklahoma Fiber Network, Oklahoma Western Telephone, Phoenix Long Distance, Southern Plains Cable, Southwest Oklahoma Telephone, and Texhoma Fiber.

New York State officials have unveiled the first round of broadband deployment grants made possible by the state’s $100 million Affordable Housing Connectivity Program (AHCP), which aims to drive affordable fiber and Wi-Fi to low-income state residents trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.

As part of the program, the state recently announced it will be spending $13.1 million to connect 14,167 lower income residents across Buffalo, Rochester, upper Manhattan and the Bronx with both affordable gigabit-capable fiber – and low cost Wi-Fi.

Flume, the partner ISP chosen by the state, will offer residents the choice of three broadband tiers: 100/20 megabit per second (Mbps) fiber for $10 per month, symmetrical 200 Mbps fiber for $15 per month, and symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) fiber for $30 per month. All three subsidized fiber options will be locked at that price point until 2034, according to the state.

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“In today's digital age, access to reliable, affordable high-speed Internet isn't just about convenience – it's about ensuring every New Yorker can participate fully in our modern economy and society,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said of the new grants. “Through these strategic investments, we're not only installing fiber and infrastructure, we're opening doors to education, healthcare and economic opportunity.”

Faster, Better, Cheaper

With the incoming Trump administration and the ascendance of GOP leaders taking aim at key aspects of broadband expansion initiatives embedded in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, industry insiders expect the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to likely get a major facelift in the coming months.

GOP Senate leaders have signaled they will push for BEAD to be scaled back or reconfigured.

One way they may do that is to remove the law’s preference for funding fiber network deployments and create a path for subsidizing Musk’s satellite Internet company, arguing that Starlink would be a more cost-effective solution to bring broadband to rural America.

Late last week, in fact, NTIA released its “Final Guidance for BEAD Funding of Alternative Broadband Technology.” And while the updated guidelines still considers fiber deployments as “priority broadband projects,” the agency administering the BEAD program now explicitly says that states can award “LEO Capacity Subgrants.”

The City of Baltimore is using $2 million of its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to bring fiber to 12 new city apartment buildings. It’s the latest effort in the city’s attempt to bridge the digital divide and bring affordable Internet access to long-marginalized communities.

According to the formal announcement from the Baltimore Mayor’s Office, Mayor Brandon Scott and the Baltimore Office of Broadband and Digital Equity (OBDE) have awarded the $2 million grant to Waves, a nonprofit formerly known as Project Waves.

“This grant program is more than just wires and signals – it’s about unlocking opportunity,” Scott said of the announcement. “By partnering with Waves, we’re ensuring residents with the greatest need have a chance to learn, connect, and build a better future for themselves and their families.”

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Waves was first launched in 2018 in direct response to the Trump FCC’s repeal of net neutrality and the general failures of federal telecom policy to address digital inequity. Project Waves (profiled by ILSR last year) initially used Point-to-Multipoint wireless connectivity to deliver free wireless broadband service to about 300 multi-dwelling unit (MDU) residents.

In the last few years, the organization has shifted to Hybrid Fiber Coaxial connectivity to provide more reliable connectivity by running fiber to the buildings and leveraging the existing wiring in the multi-dwelling units it serves, providing access to more than 1,000 local Baltimore residents, at no cost to residents.

States are poised to receive $42.5 billion in new Broadband, Equity, Access, And Deployment (BEAD) subsidies in the new year thanks to the 2021 infrastructure bill. But a growing number of ISPs in states like Minnesota say they may not participate in this latest round of federal grants, citing bureaucracy and burdensome restrictions.

While American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grants came with significant leeway as to how grant money could be spent, BEAD grants, overseen by the National Telecommunications And Information Administration (NTIA), come with numerous requirements related to lien mandates, low-cost service obligations, and deployment technology.

Those restrictions serve a purpose in the wake of the boondoggle that was the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which resulted in a massive number of defaulting bids and unfinished projects because companies bidding on projects lacked the competency or financing to finish their awarded projects. It’s a major reason the NTIA was put in charge of BEAD.

But many Minnesota ISPs are still bristling at BEAD’s requirements, according to Brent Christensen, president and CEO of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance, an organization that represents 70 ISPs across the North Star State.

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“My members are telling me they’re not going to participate,” Christensen recently told MinnPost when asked about the $42.45 billion broadband program. “The way that BEAD is structured. I don’t know how anybody’s going to participate.”