State Task Force Outlines Plans for $1 Billion Broadband Internet Expansion

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Wisconsin is getting ready to deploy more than $1 billion in federal funds over the next five years to expand broadband internet service where it’s not yet available around the state.

A state task force has spent the last year drawing up its plans for the project and this fall will begin allocating the money in the form of grants to bring broadband service to some 200,000 locations across the state.

Plans for the broadband expansion project are outlined in the annual report published Friday by Gov. Tony Evers’ Task Force on Broadband Access. The expansion program is being shepherded in Wisconsin by the Wisconsin Broadband Office, part of the state Public Service Commission (PSC).

The new report outlines the preparation over the last 12 months for the coming federally funded expansion program. It also recommends that the next state budget include more state funding for broadband expansion — a proposal that lawmakers rejected in the 2023-25 budget.

In addition to making policy recommendations for the upcoming federal funds, the report reviews the work of the task force over the last year to foster better internet access in parts of the state left behind by the digital transformation underway across Wisconsin.

The report also highlights “the need for the state to make additional investments to continue this important work and reach our ambitious goals of getting all Wisconsinites connected to high-speed broadband service in this decade,” PSC Chair Summer Strand writes in the report’s opening pages.

“Under Governor Evers’ leadership, significant progress has been made to bridge Wisconsin’s digital divide,” Strand writes. She credits PSC grants since 2019 with helping more than 410,000 homes and businesses in Wisconsin get access to new or improved broadband service.

The coming expansion program — dubbed BEAD, for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment — will provide grants for service providers expanding broadband service in unserved and underserved locations.

BEAD is funded through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law enacted in 2021. The law was among President Joe Biden’s signature policy initiatives in the first two years of his term.

The governor’s broadband task force “devoted significant time and attention to help plan for the deployment of this historic investment to make progress toward our collective goal that every resident has access to reliable, affordable, high-speed internet,” Strand writes in the 41-page task force report.

In the report the task force reiterates its goal of seeing that by 2028-29 all homes and businesses in Wisconsin have access to high-speed broadband service that can download at a speed of 100 Mbps (megabytes per second) to the connecting device and upload at the speed of 20 Mbps.

The task force goals also include seeing by 2028-29 that “community anchor institutions” — an FCC term that includes schools, libraries and other important nonprofits and local services — have reliable download and upload speeds of at least 1000 Mbps.

“The Task Force believes that all Wisconsinites should have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy, and economy,” the report states. “Broadband access is an essential catalyst for economic development, rural prosperity, educational opportunities, access to essential services, community health, entertainment, agriculture, quality of life, aging in place, and so much more across Wisconsin. Access alone will not meet our goals; internet adoption, digital literacy, and affordability are key components of equitable and sustainable access.”

Between private investment and government grants, about 180,000 locations in Wisconsin were able to add fiber high-speed internet connections in 2023, according to the report. New and upgraded towers and equipment enabled the number of fixed wireless internet connections in Wisconsin to add 240,000 additional connections.

The net result from these developments is that 88,500 more locations in Wisconsin were able to have high-speed internet service in 2023 compared with the previous year, according to the report.

“The progress over the year is impressive, and it is clear that public and private investments continue to close the gap in high need areas of Wisconsin,” the report states. “However, gaps still exist,” and data from the FCC on where service is or is not available “remains incomplete in certain areas.”

The report includes an analysis of broadband affordability around the state, defining a service as “affordable” if it costs less than 1.17% of monthly gross household income.

In a  group of counties in the northern half of the state, along with another group clustered mostly in the center and the southwest, broadband service costs more than the 1.17% ceiling.  Only eight Wisconsin counties show internet service as below that affordability measure. The rest of the state is within the range of that ceiling and affordable.

A $14.2 billion federal program that gave households a $30 discount ($75 on Tribal lands) where internet service didn’t meet the affordability guidelines expired in May 2024, the report states, and a successor program hasn’t been enacted.

About 114,000 Wisconsin households take part in the Lifeline Programs from the FCC and the Wisconsin PSC that also help to reduce internet costs. Wisconsin has designed its BEAD program to favor grant applications that include components to make service more affordable, including providing low-cost programs to eligible households.

The report notes that the state Legislature rejected a $750 million infusion in Wisconsin’s broadband expansion program that Evers proposed in the 2023-25 state. In the last 12 months, however, the state has funded 50 expansion projects that serve 14,500 locations at a cost of $33.4 million.

That money has come from the state’s existing broadband expansion grant program as well as a broadband expansion program that Evers initiated in 2021 with $100 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

“As the 2025-2027 state budget process begins, the Task Force continues to strongly recommend additional state funding for broadband expansion efforts to ensure robust, timely deployment of needed broadband infrastructure and to meet the state’s ambitious goals of getting all Wisconsinites connected to high-speed broadband service in this decade,” the report states. “The Task Force sees state funding as critical to fill gaps caused by defaults and to upgrade the deployment of short-term infrastructure to ensure high-speed, future proof internet for all Wisconsinites.”

State task force outlines plans for $1B in federally funded broadband internet expansion was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.