NH broadband expansion coming to ‘bridge gaps’ to internet access

Digital Equity Plan and Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program will cover broadband expansion, transportation, climate/energy needs

New Hampshire is on the threshold of investing a significant amount of federal money to make broadband internet access more broadly available across the state, to, in the words of the state’s economic chief, “bridge gaps across different social and income levels.”

There are two major projects in the works: the Digital Equity Plan and the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program (BEAD).

Both are overseen by the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs (BEA) in cooperation with other entities and institutions in the state.

Money for both projects is available to all U.S. states, territories and tribal entities through the Infrastructure Law. That wide-ranging, bipartisan legislation, signed into law by President Joe Biden in November 2021, covers not only broadband expansion but transportation and climate/energy needs.

“As we work to build out the state’s broadband network, the digital equity funds are designed to address access to technology and bridge gaps across different social and income levels in order to enable use of broadband to access education, employment, health care and more,” said Taylor Caswell, BEA commissioner.

State approval on how the $4.9 million allocated for the Granite State funds will be spent and by whom, including action by the Governor’s Council on approving contracts, is still pending.

It has been a multi-layered process, according to the BEA.

The state, through the BEA, for example, completed its State Digital Equity Plan proposal, partnering  with the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension to craft the five-year plan, which the BEA says involved months of stakeholder engagement, research and data collection.

The plan, after a comment period that ended in February, has been approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

The Digital Equity Plan will work in concert with BEAD.

That program, also in the final stages of deployment, is worth $196.5 million to New Hampshire. It, like the Digital Equity Plan, required a five-year plan that was approved by NTIA.

Though the money is coming from the same source, the 2021 Infrastructure Law, there is a subtle difference between the Digital Equity Plan and BEAD.

BEAD has $42.45 billion available to U.S. states, territories and tribal entities to fund infrastructure deployment, planning and adoption programs. The Digital Equity Act has $2.75 billion for three grant programs that focus on skills, technology and capacity.

They both seek to close the digital divide between the haves and the have-nots. But the Digital Equity Plan focuses on skills and capacity, while BEAD focuses on infrastructure and affordability.

“To bridge the digital divide, the Digital Equity Plan and the BEAD Broadband Action Plan work in concert to address the state’s physical infrastructure requirements, such as broadband availability gaps, as well as the need for digital equity programs,” says the Digital Equity Plan intro. “Such digital equity programs aim to educate individuals, enhancing their understanding of internet access and usage, while also ensuring that internet devices and associated services are accessible and affordable for residents of the state.”

For BEAD, think infrastructure, getting broadband on the street then from the street to the home. For Digital Equity, think access to equipment and learning to know how to use it with an emphasis on cyber safety.

The state cites a U.S. News & World Report report showing New Hampshire ranks 10th overall in access to broadband, with more than 93% of locations served with 100/20 Mbps — Mbps is megabits per second, a unit of measurement for the speed and capacity of an internet connection or network.

“Served” areas are those with access at 100/20 Mbps, while “unserved” means there is no available access at 25/3 Mbps, and “underserved” means the speed is less than the federal government criteria of 100/20 Mbps for served.

For the BEAD project in New Hampshire, the BEA is currently developing a mandated challenge process. This process is for internet service providers (ISPs), municipalities and nonprofits to challenge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) maps relative to served and unserved areas. Successful challenges, according to the BEA, would flip a served area to unserved, and vice versa.

The equity plan, as the name implies, seeks to make broadband accessible to all individuals living in New Hampshire; federal guidelines require particular attention to individuals 60 years of age and older, incarcerated individuals, individuals in low-income households, individuals with disabilities, non-English speaking individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, rural residents and veterans.

A lot of the focus of the Digital Equity Plan focuses on the user. As Caswell noted, “In addition to access, digital equity funds will seek to help individuals gain the skills and confidence to use technology effectively.”