Blog

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The Internet for All Initiative is more than a connection program – it’s a jobs program. The high-speed Internet deployment and equity projects we fund will create over 150,000 good-paying jobs. The $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program will drive historic investment in a skilled, competitive, and diverse telecommunications workforce. 

The Internet for All initiative is a critical component of the Biden-Harris Administration’s overall strategy to build a more dynamic economy. It will enable American workers and businesses to compete on the global stage and generate new economic opportunities in overlooked communities throughout the country. Internet for All will create as many as 150,000 jobs nationwide – but to maximize the economic potential of this initiative, manufacturers and Internet service providers will need to build right here in America.

NTIA ended 2022 by awarding $304 million in funding to every state, along with Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, for planning how to best deploy networks to connect everyone in America to affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet service. States are set to receive a historic influx of funding to expand high-speed Internet service thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The planning grants awarded in 2022 are down payments so the states can prepare to use the coming billions in broadband funding effectively.

In order to meet the urgency of this moment to connect the unconnected, we continue to target June 30 as the date by which we will allocate each state and territory’s BEAD Program funding for high-speed Internet service. NTIA and the FCC have worked closely with states to assist them in the process of improving the National Broadband Map to achieve this goal.

NTIA is like a start-up within the federal government, despite being nearly 45 years old. We’ve had the explosive growth of a new organization in my first year at the helm: Over one third of current NTIA staff was not here when I took the oath of office in January. While NTIA is still a small agency by government standards, we punched above our weight class in 2022. We delivered on programs to improve Internet connectivity while also notching big wins on spectrum policy, international standards, and other important tech policy issues.