Rural communities face numerous challenges to expanding access to broadband internet, including low population density, difficult terrain, and high costs for deployment. State broadband programs offer grants to help internet service providers (ISPs) address these costs, but grant requirements and state policies can sometimes create further problems for rural communities looking to expand broadband service.
Cornell University’s Natassia A. Bravo and Mildred E. Warner, Ph.D., working in partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts, conducted case studies in Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota to understand how rural communities leverage state and federal grants and navigate challenges to bring broadband access to households.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Bravo: We were trying to understand how rural communities leverage state and federal broadband grants, overcome limited financing options and other funding constraints, navigate regulatory mismatch between state and federal programs, and develop innovative local solutions. We wanted to look at how local leadership interacts with state policy. So we interviewed leaders from coalitions, local government, and the industry to understand how these challenges have affected broadband programs in Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota.
Warner: Each of the states funds a range of provider types and has a significant rural population. There are also variations in how these states choose to tackle the problems facing broadband expansion in rural communities. Colorado works closely with local governments and provides funding for broadband planning and for building open-access middle-mile networks, which are the links between the major global infrastructure that makes up the internet and individual residential and commercial buildings. The open-access middle-mile networks allow multiple ISPs to offer broadband services to a community, serving as a mechanism for promoting competition. So Colorado’s funding allows institutions like schools, libraries, and government facilities to sell their excess broadband capacity to ISPs, effectively creating a public-private partnership to help offset the costs to ISPs of connecting residents and businesses. Maine, too, has focused on developing a statewide middle-mile network and is working to expand access to fiber internet—which is the fastest and most reliable technology available—to rural communities that have not been able to get that type of service before. Maine also lets municipalities join together to form broadband utility districts, which enables them to aggregate consumer demand when applying for funding. And Minnesota works closely with broadband coalitions and has a significant number of small internet service providers.
Bravo: State broadband policies impact the choices available to rural communities, and it’s important for local officials and ISPs to approach rural broadband development with a regional mindset.
Warner: At its core, it means addressing barriers to broadband access on a regional, rather than a county or town, level. For example, low population density, challenging terrain, remoteness, and a lack of community resources can all be barriers to internet connectivity and affordability in rural areas. Forming regional coalitions like the broadband utility districts in Maine and elsewhere can enable under-resourced rural communities to aggregate subscriber demand in order to qualify for more funding and financing opportunities, attract new ISPs, and promote competition. And where state law allows it, rural communities can develop their own broadband networks with the support of state funds and then partner with each other and plan additional fiber routes, provide local ISPs with broader access to middle-mile networks, and improve network reliability.
Bravo: Rural communities need flexible grant requirements, which enable them to have control over network design, leverage when negotiating with internet service providers, and the ability to participate in state broadband program planning and implementation.
It’s important for state broadband programs to hold service providers who receive government funding accountable so that state mechanisms like challenge processes—which allow ISPs to contest competitors’ applications for state grants on the grounds that they already serve the community targeted in the application—are effective in ensuring that every location receives service. Without these kinds of accountability measures in place, local communities may not have much recourse when providers that claim to serve an area, or that they will do so in the near future, don’t follow through on those commitments.
Bravo: The overlap of federal and state funding efforts can make project development more difficult. After federal, state, or local funding has already been awarded to serve a particular area, that community is often ineligible for additional funding. This means that applicants for state grants will need to map out areas that have been awarded other funding so as not to include them in a new proposal. This process can be cumbersome, and some service providers have found it impossible to completely exclude all federally funded areas and still propose a viable project.
Varying requirements across different programs and inconsistencies in how and when new projects are reflected in broadband maps can also be challenging for providers to navigate.
Warner: Broadband coverage maps may be inaccurate and underestimate the number of unserved locations, thereby preventing providers from applying for grant funding. For example, federal broadband maps measured access at the census block level, allowing an internet service provider to claim that an entire census block had broadband access if at least one location in that census block had access. This is particularly problematic for rural areas, where census blocks are large; even if there’s one location with broadband in a census block, it may be many miles away from others.
Until 2022, Colorado circumvented this issue by dividing the whole state into plots with the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Land Survey System. Today the state requires service providers to participate in its annual data collection and submit address-level data to apply for funding. Similarly, Minnesota requires providers to contribute to state maps to be able to participate in the challenge process.
Bravo: Cooperation between local jurisdictions can support network reliability. For example, Project THOR in Colorado leveraged existing fiber lines to create a middle-mile network to provide fiber connections to rural communities in northwestern parts of the state. The Northwest Colorado Council of Governments coordinated the project and received funding from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and local matches from participating communities.
Warner: Advocates can play a key role in supporting broadband expansion by connecting ISPs, residents, and state and local officials; gathering community support; identifying grant opportunities; and promoting policy changes that will benefit the community. They can also draw the state’s attention to the needs of rural communities.
Bravo: The BEAD program includes $42.45 billion to expand high-speed internet and the Digital Equity Act provides $2.75 billion for digital equity programs. This money will flow through states, but state broadband programs will be required to follow federal requirements. As states begin to award this money, state and federal funding requirements must be aligned. And community input and local involvement will continue to be important in broadband policy design to ensure that resources are distributed effectively to reach rural communities.
Warner: These case studies have shown how important state policies are for rural broadband deployment. State policies can either expand or restrict rural communities’ choices and support different approaches to connectivity. Community input is needed to inform grant eligibility and requirements and ensure grant funds, and local involvement is important in the decision-making process to ensure that grant funds are leveraged effectively to get every household connected to high-quality, affordable broadband.