Connected States of America

California and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) continue to heavily invest in state efforts to expand affordable Internet access, and bolster digital equity, inclusion, and education programs to ensure freshly-connected communities are able to make the most of it. According to a new announcement by the CPUC, the agency has freshly approved $14.7 million in California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) Broadband Infrastructure Grant Account funding for four fiber-optic broadband projects in rural Northern California.

Earlier this month rural electric and broadband cooperatives gathered in Washington, DC, for their fifth-annual Broadband Leadership Summit. The topic du jour was broadly unpopular changes made by the NTIA to the Broadband, Equity, Deployment, and Access program (BEAD) created by the 2021 infrastructure bill. Cooperatives attending the event expressed concerns at a number of cumbersome new bureaucratic hurdles imposed by the NTIA. Most prominently discussed was the NTIA’s decision to impose new pole attachment regulations on cooperatives that have historically been exempt.

Moore Haven, Florida-based Glades Electric Cooperative has completed a long-planned fiber broadband network into largely unserved parts of the Sunshine State. The 1,600-mile network, built in conjunction with Conexon Connect, now spans Glades, Hendry, Highlands and Okeechobee counties, and the vast majority of the cooperative’s electrical footprint.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance today released its comprehensive 2026 census of Tribal Internet networks, finding that the number of active Tribal-owned and operated broadband networks has doubled since ILSR first conducted this research in 2020, while offering a new way to interact with these networks’ stories.

On Thursday, the California Department of Technology (CDT) announced that after five years of planning, building, and promising access, the state’s $3.2 billion Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative (MMBI) is now operational. The high-speed network connected the last mile to the state’s first customer, the Bishop Paiute Tribe, a Native American community in Inyo County.

The Bois Forte Band of Chippewa (also referred to as Ojibwe) has officially begun construction on a foundational fiber optic broadband expansion project in northern Minnesota. The ambitious undertaking is supported by a significant $20 million grant awarded under the 2021 Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, marking a major step forward in modernizing infrastructure for the sovereign nation.