With New York’s Affordable Broadband Act (ABA) now in effect, lawmakers in other states are filing similar legislation that requires large Internet Service Providers to offer low-cost plans for financially-strapped households in their respective states.

In Massachusetts, State Sen. Pavel Payano filed a bill earlier this month similar to New York’s law that seeks to establish a $15/month plan for low-income households in the Bay State.

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Then, earlier this week, California Assemblymember Tasha Boerner introduced Assembly Bill 353 that would mandate ISPs “make affordable home Internet plans available to California residents,” Boerner’s office said in a press release.

“Right now, families are struggling to afford essential services, like the Internet,” Boerner said in a press statement.

Speaking to why passing an affordable broadband law was important, Boerner put it in plain terms, noting that “households in our state don’t have support to pay for a basic home Internet service plan. We are talking about kids not being able to do homework at home, parents having to go to libraries to apply for jobs, and people not having access to do basic things, like telehealth.”

Now that the lengthy legal beef has been settled and New York’s Affordable Broadband Act (ABA) is set to take effect this month, it marks a potentially pivotal moment in a national effort to address one of the biggest barriers to broadband adoption: 

Affordability.

The first-in-the-nation law requiring large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) operating in New York to offer a $15/month plan for qualifying low-income households stands to benefit the approximately 1.7 million New Yorkers who had been enrolled in the federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) Congress allowed to expire last spring.

With a new administration entering the White House – supported by GOP Congressional leaders who blocked previous ACP renewal efforts – the newly enacted ABA “paints a path that other states will look at,” as New Street Research analyst Blair Levin recently noted.

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“In a world where the federal government is subsidizing low-income households for $30 a month, states did not need to take action to address low-income broadband affordability,” Levin added. But now, without the ACP benefit, “states may try to assist low-income households to keep them connected.”

Though Northampton, Massachusetts residents still broadly support the construction of a city-owned municipal fiber broadband network, city officials are celebrating the arrival of Gateway Fiber, which will soon be delivering a more affordable fiber option, and more broadband competition, to the traditionally underserved city.

Gateway Fiber recently unveiled plans to deliver multi-gigabit speeds to large swaths of the city. The company, which will finance the entirety of the build, says it’s already invested $3 million in the project so far.

It’s a welcome arrival for a city that’s been frustrated by substandard service provided by regional telecom monopolies, and flirting with the idea of its own municipal broadband network for the better part of the last decade. Some of the city’s efforts on this front have made it easier for providers like Gateway to serve the city of 29,000.

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“While we don’t have a final cost estimate for the project, it will be a multi-million-dollar investment that will benefit both residents and small businesses in the Northampton area,” Gateway Fiber representative David Workman tells ILSR. “The project is 100 percent funded by Gateway Fiber, and we are also exploring grant opportunities that can be used to address digital equity.”

A ceremonial ribbon cutting ceremony for the project was held in late September. The multi-phase construction (4,000 locations passed in phase one, 5,000 locations passed in phase two) is expected to extend well into 2025.

Communities looking to leverage American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for broadband or other local infrastructure need to act soon or risk losing access to a once-in-a-generation funding resource.

Most ARPA recipients seem well aware of the deadline, but data suggests more than a few communities could drop the ball.

As part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), $25 billion was specifically earmarked for broadband expansion.

But the law also created the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program, which doled out $350 billion for states, municipalities, and tribal governments to offset pandemic losses or flexibly invest in local infrastructure.

State broadband officials in Massachusetts have announced over $45 million in grant awards from the state’s Broadband Infrastructure Gap Networks Program with the lion’s share going to Verizon to “expand high-speed broadband [I]nternet infrastructure to underserved homes, business, and community anchor institutions across the state.”

State broadband officials say the $45.4 million in grant awards will be coupled with $40 million in matching funds from the awardees to expand broadband access to approximately 2,000 locations in 41 Massachusetts communities.

In 2022, as we previously reported here, Massachusetts was allocated a total of $145 million in federal Rescue Plan dollars to fund the Bay State program. With the state’s first round of funding from the Gap Networks Program awarding $45 million to four applicants, about $100 million is left in the pot for future funding rounds. Massachusetts has yet to receive its $147 million share of federal BEAD funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law, the spending rules for which are much more stringent than the more flexible CPF funding rules.

Wilbraham, Massachusetts officials are taking the first steps toward building a city-owned open access fiber network with an eye on boosting local competition and delivering affordable, next-gen broadband access to long-neglected local residents.

Having issued a request for proposal (RFP) earlier this year with the help of EntryPoint Networks, city officials are currently identifying which company they’ll hire to deploy fiber to the city of 14,749.

They say a formal plan to present to voters – as well as a total projected network cost estimate – is expected by October.

“We have no intention of raising taxes or utilizing tax dollars,” Wilbraham Broadband Advisory Committee Chair Tom Newton tells local news outlet The Reminder.

Newton says Wilbraham is hopeful the new network will be primarily financed through an enterprise fund, similar to how the town handles the cost of water and sewer. Depending on take rates, the city is also hopeful the network will be sustainable primarily through subscriber fees. How that all works out in practice remains to be seen.

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Officials are hopeful to keep the total price per household around $60 a month. A project FAQ states the city wants to deliver symmetrical 20 Mbps (megabit per second), 100 Mbps, 250 Mbps, 500 Mbps, and symmetrical 1 Gbps (gigabit per second) service tiers to residents.

The city-owned utility in Chicopee, Massachusetts has adopted the “fiberhood” approach to broadband deployment as it expands affordable access to city residents under the Crossroads Fiber brand.

Frustrated by a lack of affordable broadband access, the city tabbed Magellan Advisors in 2015 to conduct a feasibility study into city-provided broadband access. After a survey showed a majority of city residents would support such an initiative, Chicopee Electric Light launched Crossroads Fiber in the summer of 2019 in a small pilot area.

Since then, the utility has been expanding access steadily to the rest of the city – joining a growing roster of city-owned utilities that are responding to broadband market failure by taking matters into their own hands.

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Planners have broken down the city into 144 different fiberhoods, where user interest gleaned from the project website dictates which parts of the city see deployment priority. It’s an approach some communities adopt to finance network construction without having to rely on tax revenues or loans. For Chicopee the estimated cost to build a fiber network that reaches all 55,000 residents is between $30 and $35 million.