February 2026

As state broadband offices finalize their BEAD awards and spend the last of their ARPA funds, local government leaders have a clear view of the new federally funded broadband infrastructure coming to their communities. But in cities and rural communities alike, that federal funding will not deliver robust terrestrial broadband service to every home—and the locations served by those awards may not be eligible for future federal funding for years to come.

In light of this post-federal-funding reality, local governments should consider what types of strategies they can develop to attract robust, resilient, and long-lasting broadband investment to their communities. These approaches may include implementing public-private partnerships with ISPs to maximize available funding and achieve the community’s public policy goals.

Consider these examples of local governments that successfully secured partnerships to meet their broadband goals:

• Memphis, Tennessee, used a competitive process to procure connectivity for enterprise and smart city purposes, with fee incentives and priority provided for entities that commit to invest their own funds to build fiber to homes throughout the city, including a proportional investment in the lower-income areas of the city.
• Scott County, Kentucky, used a competitive solicitation to select a partner to build fiber-to-the-premises in its unserved communities and to upgrade existing broadband internet to faster speeds in served areas. The county’s award to its partner was contingent on the partner seeking a federal grant to reduce the county’s financial outlay.
• Lancaster, Pennsylvania, dedicated some existing infrastructure and modest ARPA funds to incent a private entity to commit to building ubiquitous fiber-to-the-premises, with the city’s contribution and risk both limited and contained.
• Bloomington, Indiana, committed to modest funding of infrastructure in the lowest-income areas of the city as part of a larger collaboration with a private investor that committed to using private capital to build fiber-to-the-premises citywide.
• Boulder, Colorado, leveraged access to its existing fiber ring as an inducement to a private company to build fiber citywide.
• Boston, Massachusetts, used its spending power to lease fiber that met its own needs for fiber to educational and public safety facilities while securing private investment to build deep into the neighborhoods in which those facilities are located.

These and other examples should give heart to any community focused on the next wave of broadband investment. The potential to attract private investment for broadband is not reduced in the post-BEAD moment; to the contrary, as the BEAD program outcomes become clearer (and the BEAD distraction ends), the market is likely to get more robust. 

Now is a good time for localities to define their broadband goals—including for competition and best-in-class infrastructure—and build strategy for working with the private sector to secure these goals.

Please contact us if you have questions about these strategies or would like to explore strategy for your community.