The third annual NRECA Broadband Leadership Summit had its largest attendance ever, reflecting growing interest in the conference and topic as electric cooperatives play an increasingly crucial role in bridging the digital divide.

The summit, which took place June 12-14 in Washington, D.C., brought together over 150 attendees across the broadband sector and featured key speakers from Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

NRECA Broadband participants attended two days of panel discussions and met with congressional delegations on Capitol Hill to advocate for affordable broadband service, symmetrical network standards and accurate broadband maps, among other priorities.

“NRECA is really good at advocacy as an organization, and we want to make sure we leverage that capacity in the interest of NRECA Broadband,” CEO Jim Matheson said during the summit’s welcome session.

With co-ops serving a huge swath of the country, including 92% of persistent-poverty counties, NRECA members are crucial sources of information for policymakers, he said.

Administration officials “want to engage, they want to hear what we have to say,” Matheson said. “It reflects our standing in terms of serving rural areas, and the recognition that if we’re going to make progress in these hard-to-serve areas, it’s up to us. We are the leader in doing that.”

Co-ops are competing against larger tech companies and service providers for billions of dollars in federal funding to deploy broadband networks.

But co-ops “are uniquely positioned to win,” NRECA Broadband Director Cliff Johnson said. “It’s because of who we serve. It’s because of what our mission is.”

Participation in NRECA’s broadband initiative has jumped 20% since the start of 2024, with 119 active participants at the start of the summit, Johnson said.

BEAD funding update

The summit included an update from NTIA Deputy Associate Administrator Evan Feinman on the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.

The program, created through the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021, provides money for state grants to bring high-speed internet to unserved and underserved communities. BEAD funding was allocated to states and territories in June 2023, and NTIA expects to approve all state initial proposals by this fall.

As co-ops pursue BEAD grants, Feinman encouraged them to work with states to overcome any application or project hurdles.

“The more you assume that the rules preclude something, the more of a disadvantage you put yourself at,” he said. “There’s a ton of flexibility in the program and within the states’ ability to navigate here to meet you where you are.”

Feinman said that flexibility will be key to making the most of BEAD, which was the single largest broadband funding program in the infrastructure law.

“Our working assumption is that Congress is not going to give us another $42.5 billion, so we need to get it right this time,” he said.

Feinman expressed confidence in NRECA members to do just that.

“There is simply not a better set of partners to work with than electric co-ops,” Feinman said. “The cooperative model is incredibly powerful. It was designed in a very fundamental way to solve a problem that is very similar to the digital divide.”

FCC perspectives

The conference also featured a “fireside chat” with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who said the surge in federal funding from BEAD and other programs could make historic progress in providing broadband access to all Americans.

“We really have for the first time, I think, enough federal dollars, if properly administered, to get the job done of ending the digital divide,” he said.

But Carr noted the roadblocks hindering deployment, including a cumbersome and inefficient permitting process.

“We have to get back in [Washington], D.C., to an agenda that will facilitate infrastructure builds,” he said. Appropriating billions for infrastructure deployment without permitting reform is like “jumping on the gas and the brakes at the same time.”

Carr also stressed the need for improved broadband mapping and the importance of relying on a single map to distribute government funds.

“If different states and different grant programs are using different maps, then we’re really going to be in trouble in terms of overbuilding,” he said.

Hill advocacy

The need for improved permitting and mapping were among the messages that NRECA Broadband participants took to Capitol Hill during the three-day event.

On June 13, summit attendees received an in-person briefing from Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.

Carter said he hoped the House will vote on the American Broadband Deployment Act, a bill he sponsored that aims to streamline the permitting of broadband infrastructure. He is also leading a Congressional Review Act measure to overturn the FCC’s digital discrimination order.

Whether for energy or broadband infrastructure, “permitting and regulations are just crushing us,” the lawmaker said.

He implored co-ops to help Congress shape durable solutions to those challenges.

“We need your input. You’re the boots on the ground,” Carter said. “You’re the ones who see what’s going on in the real world.”

NRECA Broadband is positioning co-ops as a crucial force in rural broadband. Visit cooperative.com/broadband to learn more and sign up.