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.

Cooperatives and Tennessee municipal broadband projects have nabbed a respectable chunk of Tennessee's latest round of middle and last mile broadband grants.

Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) recently announced the state had awarded more than $162.7 million in broadband and digital opportunity grants, funded primarily via federal COVID relief legislation.

Image

TNECD indicates that $97.2 million is being earmarked for last mile and middle mile connectivity programs, with $65.5 million set aside for digital opportunity programs. The grants should extend broadband to an additional 236,000 Tennessee residents across 92 counties. Winners will provide $48 million in matching funds and must complete all projects by the end of 2026.

As is often the case, the regional telecom monopoly nabbed the lion’s share of the grants and awards, with Charter (Spectrum) being awarded more than $11.7 million for projects across Polk, Hardin, and Wayne counties. Charter was the top winner in the TNECD’s 2022 grant awards as well, nabbing $20.4 million to fund expansion across six counties.

At the same time, municipalities and cooperatives have been fairly well represented in both the 2022 and this year’s awards.

As the municipal broadband movement continues to gain momentum, we created a new fact sheet to highlight the dramatic surge in the number of communities building publicly-owned, locally controlled high-speed Internet infrastructure over the last three years.

In January, we announced our updated tally of municipal broadband networks across the U.S., which showed that between January 2021 and January 2024 at least 47 new municipal networks had been lit up for service.

Our census of new municipal broadband networks comes while dozens of other projects are still in the planning or pre-construction phase, which includes the possibility of building 40 new municipal networks in California alone.

The new fact sheet not only contains pertinent numbers to illustrate the rising tide of municipal broadband networks, it also includes snapshots of four recently launched networks now providing service to communities hungry for high-quality Internet connectivity and competitive choice.

You can find the new Rising Tide of Municipal Broadband fact sheet here.

Image

Community Broadband Resource Pairing

With Big Telecom’s assault-on-competition campaign as loud (and misleading) as ever, a small municipal broadband utility in Massachusetts is quietly showcasing one of the many reasons why building publicly-owned, locally controlled broadband infrastructure is gaining in popularity, racking up awards, and earning high subscriber satisfaction rates in communities across the nation.

With an eye on keeping local dollars close to home for community investments, last week the Westfield City Council voted to approve an $11.1 million bond for a new athletic track and field at the local high school, thanks to the success of Westfield Gas & Electric’s broadband subsidiary Whip City Fiber. And though the return on investment may not be as eye-popping as the $2.7 billion Chattanooga's municipal network, EPB Fiber, has reaped in Tennessee, Westfield officials hailed the community investment as a “huge moment” for local residents.

In a recently published piece in The American Prospect, Sean Gonsalves, ILSR's Community Broadband Networks Initiative Associate Director for Communications, reports on four cities across the U.S. that are well prepared to deal with the demise of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).  

The article – titled "The Municipal Broadband Solution" – begins by laying out why Congress created the popular program and how letting the ACP go bankrupt undermines the national "Internet For All" Initiative now underway. However, while digital equity advocates across the nation rightly lament the demise of the program, the focus of the article is on cities that have figured out how to deliver afforable high-quality Internet access even without the ACP.   

Here's a few excerpts:

Congress created the ACP to soften a harsh reality: Americans pay among the highest prices for broadband of any developed nation in the world, leaving tens of millions unable to afford internet service—something experts have long noted is a telltale sign of a broken market dominated by monopoly providers, and is at the very heart of why the U.S. digital divide is as massive as it is.

However, although federal lawmakers have known for over a year that the fund would be bankrupt by this spring, GOP congressional leaders have not budged on even bipartisan attempts to save the ACP, prompting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to announce in January that the agency was being forced to wind down the popular program.

It’s a major setback for the “Internet for All” effort, especially in light of a recent FCC survey that found 29 percent of ACP beneficiaries would be left without any home internet service whatsoever without the benefit, in an age when internet connectivity is a necessity for meaningful participation in 21st-century society.

As the new year begins, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) announced today its latest tally of municipal broadband networks which shows a dramatic surge in the number of communities building publicly-owned, locally controlled high-speed Internet infrastructure over the last three years.

Since January 1, 2021, at least 47 new municipal networks have come online with dozens of other projects still in the planning or pre-construction phase, which includes the possibility of building 40 new municipal networks in California alone.

Knoxville, Tennessee's Knoxville Utility Board (KUB) says it has completed the first phase of its ambitious broadband deployment, bringing affordable fiber access to more than 50,000 premises in this city of 192,000 – many for the very first time.

When we last wrote about KUB back in 2021, the city's utility had just received approval to build what will eventually be the biggest municipal broadband network in the U.S.

All told, the $702 million project, known as KUB Fiber, aims to deliver affordable fiber to 210,000 households across KUB’s 688-square-mile service area, taking between seven and ten years to complete.

KUB says that the first phase of fiber deployment involved the installation of more than 1,100 miles of fiber infrastructure. Upgraded users have the option of three tiers of service: symmetrical gigabit per second (Gbps) service for $65 a month; symmetrical 2.5 Gbps service for $150 a month; and symmetrical 10 Gbps service for $300 a month.

KUB’s service tiers do not come with usage caps or long-term contracts. Unlike many municipal operations, KUB is also offering locals the option of bundling television service.

KUB was driven to expand access after more than a decade of local frustration at the slow speeds, high prices, and spotty coverage caused by a notable lack of competition between regional telecom monopolies, AT&T and Comcast (Xfinity). Both companies have attempted to lock down customers via long-term contracts ahead of the network’s completion.

As one local resident said:

“Comcast thanked me for being a customer for 23 years, but it's not because I've had the option to go anywhere else. They have had 23 years to fix these problems and they haven't."

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland has introduced an ambitious new plan to incentivize private telecom providers to deliver affordable fiber to 85 percent of the Tennessee city of 633,000. The project, part of the city’s Memphis 3.0 master plan, will spend more than $700 million to expand broadband in a city where less than a quarter of residents–most of them wealthy–have access to next-generation fiber.

On September 23, city leaders introduced a new city ordinance amendment establishing new, streamlined permitting and fee requirements. Their goal: to incentivize companies willing to expand fiber optic broadband to at least 60 percent of Memphis’ residential and business premises and 60 percent of all existing low-income premises.

Not long after, city leaders unveiled more details about their "Smart Memphis Fiber" effort. After issuing an RFP last year, Memphis officials say they’ve struck a partnership with Paris-based Meridiam and Blue Suede Network to build a $700 million fiber optic network with an eye on eventually reaching 85 percent of the total Memphis population.

Image

“City Government will incentivize any interested company by reducing our costs through reductions in permitting fees and right-of-way fees,” Strickland said in a recent presentation before the city council. “Additionally, we will streamline our process to allow a company to get to work faster. We are also putting our own skin in the game.”