States are targeting American Rescue Plan capital-project funds to address the 'most complex broadband challenges'

Getty Images photo illustration by Huber & Starke via Route Fifty

States are busy planning how to spend money for capital projects from the American Rescue Plan Act, and according to researchers at Pew Charitable Trusts, they are opting to use it to complete long-awaited broadband projects, reports Chris Teale of Route Fifty. Because capital-project funds are flexible, "states can use them address some of their most complex broadband expansion challenges, including last-mile connections to underserved areas and delivering service to affordable-housing communities," Teale reports.

"What we're seeing happening right now, and really over the last two years in particular, are a lot of necessary changes to the federal broadband policy that are all now being implemented at once," Kathryn de Wit, project director at Pew's Broadband Access Initiative and an author of the report, told Teale. States will receive combined funding to assist in getting them over funding obstacles. Teale reports: "With money from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program likely to be dispersed this year, and another $2.75 billion available through Digital Equity Act programs, the use of CPF provides a lesson in how states can deploy federal funds in new ways to solve some of their most difficult connectivity challenges."

Vermont is one state that is carefully deploying CPA funds to improve the state's broadband. Teale writes, "Vermont is building out a fiber network, coordinated in part by 10 communications union districts . . .  that bring together multiple jurisdictions to work together to find common solutions. . . . The combined CPF funds and the expected BEAD allocation will only cover around 60% of the cost of building out the fiber network, with the rest provided by other state funds, telecommunications companies and other sources." Christine Hallquist, executive director of the Vermont Community Broadband Board, told Teale, "It just wouldn't happen without federal funds."

"What we're seeing are states being very targeted in their spending and thinking about how to maximize the flexibility to reach communities and households that are both expensive to serve and challenging to serve," de Wit told Teale. Teale reports, "The Federal Communications Commission released a new version of its much-maligned broadband availability map in late May, which will likely be the one used to determine BEAD funding allocations, according to broadband analyst Mike Conlow. . . . States should take the planning process seriously, de Wit recommended, as their blueprints will help set goals for deployment and uptake among residents and be critical in measuring their progress."