With the midterm elections behind us and long-stalled federal digital equity funds waiting on the horizon, it would be easy to assume the funding problem is solved. It isn’t. 

The spending rules and the timeline for those dollars are still unsettled for a program that’s already been cancelled once.

The next — and last — Building for Digital Equity (B4DE) livestream of 2026 will take on the question digital inclusion practitioners are still wrestling with: who pays for digital inclusion now?

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 (NDIA) co-host: “Last Call for 2026: Who Pays for Digital Inclusion Now?”

Registration for the free webinar is now open here.

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The hour will begin with a fast look back at the year, with NDIA’s Angela Siefer helping us take stock. That segment will cover the Digital Equity Act’s cancellation, NDIA’s lawsuit, and the revived grant program now headed toward a December opening.

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.

On International Internet Day (October 29), Pulse Fiber announced the launch of its new 20 gig residential Internet service — the first provider in the Centennial State to offer symmetrical 20 gigabits-per-second home connectivity.

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.

“Vector Fiber is ideal for residents who push the limits of what a home connection can do,” said Brieana Reed‑Harmel, Loveland’s broadband division manager. “Whether they’re running a business out of their home, managing massive datasets, or developing the next breakthrough technology, 20 Gigs ensures they never hit a ceiling.”

The new service offers features typically reserved for commercial-grade connectivity. In addition to 20 Gig symmetrical speeds, it comes with a professional SFP handoff — a small pluggable fiber port for the home router that lets subscribers use all 20 Gigs without a data bottleneck. The service also provides a static IP address — a permanent Internet address that allows end-users to host websites, servers, automation hubs and to remotely access files, cameras, and home systems.

“The result is a high‑performance platform built for residents whose technical requirements exceed what standard home [I]nternet services can deliver,” officials said of the new service. “Comparatively, the majority of [I]nternet providers nationwide do not offer plans in excess of 10 Gigs.”

Who Needs 20 Gigs?

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.

In a Nov. 2 letter accepting the Notice of Award under the BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program established by the 2021 infrastructure law, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) President John Reynolds said the agency does not read the new federal grant conditions as requiring California to forfeit its legal rights or to stop enforcing state law, and that the CPUC will sign BEAD grant recipient agreements only if and when the state and NTIA resolve its disagreements.

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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.

The milestone marks a major victory for local digital self-reliance in western Michigan, delivering symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds at prices commercial monopolies like Comcast have historically refused to match.

An Investment For ‘Future History Books’

Home to about 34,000 residents, Holland’s path to municipal fiber was more than a decade in the making.

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HBPW had maintained a small institutional and business fiber loop dating back to 1992. But like countless mid-sized cities across the Midwest, local residents and small businesses outside the immediate downtown core were left at the mercy of a cable-and-phone duopoly that chronically underinvested in network upgrades while hiking rates via hidden junk fees.

Formal exploration of a citywide build began around 2016. In 2021, the city tapped engineering consultancy CTC Technology & Energy to conduct a feasibility study and business plan. That study laid bare what locals already knew: leaving the city’s connectivity to the private market would ensure decades of stagnant speeds, erratic customer service, and escalating costs.

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In a world where most core infrastructure in our lives is measured, tested, and held to a standard of quality - from electricity, to water, to gasoline - Internet infrastructure stands alone. 

How many households have no Internet access? 

Which Internet Service Providers' networks are unreliable and unusable during the worst times of the day? Where does competition result in faster speeds or lower prices, and how do we replicate that? 

We have only the broadest sense of answers to all of these questions, and more, because the FCC has not taken seriously its charge to track and pursue policy to make sure every American household has equitable access to the Internet. 

That failure has resulted in outcomes where, for more than a generation, the burden of disconnection has fallen on those families that can least afford it. Join us for a free webinar on what we can know, and what we can't, and why that matters.

Next Wednesday, November 18th, the Broadband Data and Policy Forum - a coalition of policy researchers, data scientists, and academics - is hosting a conversation about what it's like to work with this data that connects hundreds of millions of places with the providers that claim to serve them. 

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 second half of the hour will feature a Q & A, so bring your questions!

Join us for the conversation next Wednesday, November 18th, for free, by registering here.

This is not your father’s broadband conference.

It’s CNCon in Seattle, an inaugural gathering for those running community networks or looking to start connecting people the big monopoly providers have left digitally disconnected.

Registration for the November 20 in-person event — Community Networks Conference (CNCon) 2026 — is now open here.

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.

“Building community-based networks is rewarding but incredibly challenging, and we want to create a support network for these groups to work together and strategize towards common goals,” Jang said.

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Big Tent Approach

“For this first conference, we are taking a big tent approach,” Jang says. “We want to be inclusive of folks with broadband projects as well as those who are operating emergency or disaster resilience networks, to see what we might all have in common.”

Attendees will explore tradeoffs in network operations — fun vs need vs profit — and address differences between working with fiber, fixed wireless, mesh, and Long Range Radio (LoRa) Internet access technologies.

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.

At the heart of the standoff is California’s Carrier Of Last Resort (COLR) obligations, which mandate that state residents have reliable access to voice calls, 911, deaf and disabled assistance services, customer service support, protection from unwanted charges, and flexible billing options.

AT&T lobbyists have worked tirelessly to eliminate such requirements in 20 of its 21 state service territories, falsely claiming the regulations stifled the company’s ability to install next-generation fiber. In reality, AT&T has long been criticized for cheaping out on fiber investments, and is primarily interested in eliminating already dwindling oversight.

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In many areas, AT&T has refused to upgrade aging DSL infrastructure, instead shoveling California residents off to “good enough” wireless service. But AT&T’s wireless service isn’t consistently available, affordable, or reliable – particularly when it comes to providing Californians dependable access to essential 911 infrastructure.

Despite this, more than 80 percent of 911 calls in California are now placed from a wireless device. CPUC data also shows that of the more than 1,000 recent wireless service outages in California, many lasted longer than 24 hours, including 359 that lasted longer than 72 hours.

Construction on the regional expansion of Sherburne’s municipal open-access fiber network is advancing across neighboring Chenango County borders, backed by a $6.9 million state grant intended to turn a local pilot project into a regional community-owned utility model.

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, after being designated in 2022 as one of four initial municipalities (alongside Nichols, Diana, and Pitcairn) to participate in New York State’s $1 billion ConnectALL initiative.

Partnering with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Empire State Development, the village shared an initial $10 million state pilot allocation to engineer a publicly owned open-access fiber network utilizing Sherburne Electric’s existing poles, bucket trucks, and municipal rights-of-way.

This project initially passed roughly 1,800 to 2,000 premises inside the village of Sherburne and immediate electric territory. Village of Sherburne Board of Trustees meeting minutes from last June indicate that the core network in Sherburne now has more than 1,000 active subscribers.

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Those same meeting minutes indicate that Sherburne officials had requested a deadline extension but were denied it by Albany. “Superintendent [Travis] DuBois said Sherburne is furthest ahead with this fiber project than the other 13 systems and Albany want to show at least one project closed out by year end,” the minutes indicate.

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.

When we last checked in on Willmar back in March, the city council had just voted 4-3 to sign off on the $24.5 million open access project. After a summer of steady construction the city says it’s making meaningful progress toward a full commercial launch.

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“We expect to light up our first users on the network this year,” Willmar City Administrator Kyle Box tells ILSR.

Phased Construction Starting From GO (Bond)

Construction of the network is occurring in three phases.

Phase one of the project, focused on Southwest Willmar, is budgeted for between $7.6 million to $9.2 million. This phase of the project will focus on backbone construction, neighborhood conduit boring, lateral connections, and converting a former municipal wastewater facility into the network operations center (NOC).

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.

While the plan is for Gateway to first offer service in Falmouth, the company also has its sights set on expanding its network into other towns on the Cape — including the towns of Barnstable and Yarmouth, the most populous parts of the peninsula.

For years, Cape residents have complained about the high-priced, spotty service of the Comcast cable monopoly as their only wireline option. Enter Gateway. It represents a watershed moment for the region, as the ISP looks to tap the pent-up demand for the gold-standard of Internet access technologies (fiber) by first targeting Falmouth, home to about 33,000 residents.