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Join us Tuesday, December 8, at 3 pm ET as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks initiative and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance co-host: “Last Call for 2026: Who Pays for Digital Inclusion Now?” The popular on-going webinar series — sponsored by UTOPIA Fiber — is geared for those doing digital equity work on the ground, funders, community leaders, and anyone trying to figure out what comes next as the policy landscape continues to shift.

Minnesota electricity cooperative East Central Energy (ECE) is the first broadband provider in the state to secure a Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment contract agreement, as state officials begin formally doling out their $652 million share of federal grant money. The cooperative, the initial $16.6 million round of BEAD funding will help finance the deployment of affordable high-speed connectivity to approximately 3,750 locations across rural Minnesota.

The home Internet service with the fastest speeds in Colorado isn’t coming from Comcast or Quantum Fiber. It’s coming from the city-owned fiber network in Loveland. Branded as Vector Fiber, the new ultra fast tier introduces a connection capacity that is a rarity for residential offerings — something Pulse officials say is “designed for a niche but growing segment” in the Front Range city of about 80,000.

California has agreed to accept its $1.86 billion in federal BEAD funds, but is putting the NTIA on notice that the new conditions being imposed by the Trump administration will not amount to giving up its power to regulate Internet service in the Golden State. At issue is Section 50 of NTIA’s updated grant terms, which would require states to commit not to enforce laws that regulate broadband rates, impose net neutrality, require open access, “or other utility-style rules on broadband internet.”

After more than a decade of grassroots study, public debate, and pushback from legacy telecom incumbents, the City of Holland, Michigan is officially lighting up its open access citywide fiber network. Operated by the municipal electric utility, the Holland Board of Public Works’ (HBPW) publicly owned, open-access network — dubbed Holland City Fiber — has transitioned from network construction to lighting up its first subscribers.

We measure electricity, water and gasoline, but not the Internet access families depend on. Find out what the FCC’s data can and can’t tell us, and what happens when it goes blind altogether, in a free webinar next Thursday. At 3pm ET, the two-part webinar begins. Led by ILSR's Christine Parker and Washington State University's Nick Pappin, they'll talk about what we can know, what we can't, and what happens when the data goes blind altogether.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission has prepared an order that would preempt California’s copper retirement rules, the agency said Thursday. AT&T asked for the move in May, following a March FCC order that invited companies to ask the agency to set aside state regulations that hindered their copper retirement efforts.

Earlier this month, the Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB) launched VT Speed Check, a new website where Vermont residents and businesses can check their Internet speed, follow the progression of where high-speed Internet access is available across the state. In partnership with Ookla — a leading connectivity intelligence and performance metrics company — the new website includes a speed test to determine just how fast (or not) household Internet connections are, a map that anonymously aggregates speed test results, tools to help residents learn how their Internet connection working, and troubleshooting tips to fix problems.

The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians recently reached a major milestone with the launch of the Tribe’s long-awaited Chumash Fiber Network. The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians has taken matters into their own hands and created the Chumash Fiber Network, which is now providing speeds up to five gigabits per second (Gbps) to reservation residents.

Tribal Broadband Bootcamp has released a new video on YouTube looking back on what the immersive learning experience has built. The timing is fitting, as more Tribes celebrate the building of their own networks in parts of the U.S. that have historically been left behind by the nation’s major telecom companies.

Registration for the November 20 event — Community Networks Conference (CNCon) 2026 — is now open! Hosted by the Seattle Community Network and Local Connectivity Lab, conference organizer Esther Jang tells ILSR the gathering will be geared for community network operators to geek out, “share, learn from each other, and build together,” adding that they are also putting out the call to community network aficionados who have closed shop and can talk candidly about why, and what went wrong.

California regulators are locked in a fierce battle with AT&T over state residents' access to life-saving emergency communications. Officials have accused the telecom giant of actively misleading the public as the state considers stricter rules to make wireless coverage maps more accurate, and providers more accountable for reliability failures.

Construction on the regional expansion of Sherburne’s municipal open-access fiber network is advancing across neighboring Chenango County borders. The project, branded Sherburne Connect, originated as an early municipal fiber deployment operated in coordination with the village’s century-old public electric utility, Sherburne Electric.

Once again, Consumer Reports finds that the top Internet service providers are independently-owned, locally-owned, or publicly-owned ISPs. Among the top 10 rated ISPs were Firefly Fiber Broadband, a subsidiary of the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative offering fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service to roughly 48,000 rural households in its region.

Willmar, Minnesota officials say they’re making steady progress on construction of the city’s planned $24.5 million open access fiber network, with the first residential and business customers slated to come online sometime later this year. Dubbed Willmar Connect, construction of the city-owned fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network broke ground in May 2026, marking a pivotal turn from years of feasibility studies and council debates to actual directional boring, conduit placement, and fiber splicing.

Join us today, Thursday, October 8, from 3:00 to 4:00 PM ET, for this latest installment of the Building for Digital Equity webinar series — a Digital Inclusion Week 2026 special edition. This is a webinar for anyone doing digital equity work on the ground, anyone funding it, and anyone trying to figure out what comes next as the policy landscape keeps shifting.

Empower Broadband, a spinoff of Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative (MEC), says it recently passed the 10,000 subscriber milestone and is making major inroads on bringing affordable fiber Internet access to unserved regions of Mecklenburg, Halifax, Charlotte, and Brunswick counties in Southern Virginia. The $154 million network deployment was financed in part through the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative (VATI), which provided a $69.4 million grant in late 2021 to the Southside Planning District Commission and Empower.

At long last, fiber-to-the-home connectivity is coming to Cape Cod. Gateway Fiber, a Missouri-based Internet service provider already operating in western and central Massachusetts, has announced it has begun network construction in Falmouth and says service will be available to residents and businesses later this year. It’s a development that, after decades of frustration with high prices for cable service, will bring residential fiber connectivity to the region for the first time, initiated seven years ago by an effort to build a community-owned solution.

The Washington State Broadband Office says it has signed contracts with seven broadband providers, tribes, and municipalities to begin work on a major affordable Internet expansion plan that should deliver $165 million in investment across nearly a dozen rural Washington counties and Tribal territories. Most of the impacted areas are rural communities long-neglected by regional dominant telecom monopolies.

ILSR's Christopher Mitchell joins Broadband Breakfast Live Online for a discussion on how Tribal communities are combining fiber, shared networks and adoption support to create Internet services they can govern and sustain. The conversation ranged from fiber and satellites to open-access networks, spectrum rights, data sovereignty and the cost of helping residents get online.