Community Broadband Initiatives

Keller and Heckman Telecommunications practice attorneys have facilitated the successful implementation of scores of site-specific community broadband initiatives by municipalities and electric cooperatives, including many of the most prominent projects in America. This unparalleled legal experience enables us to advise municipalities and electric cooperative clients at every stage of such broadband initiatives, from inception to construction to ongoing operation. Our counsel includes business strategizing, contract development, government and community relations, and regulatory advice.

Helping these initiatives to succeed is our deep experience with the broader legal and political issues affecting such projects. Our practice has been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the digital divide, representing new entrants, municipal entities, nontraditional providers, infrastructure owners, and public-private partnerships as they work to deploy essential broadband infrastructure. For the last three decades, we have participated in almost every federal and state legislative and judicial battle over the authority of public entities and electric cooperatives to participate in public communications projects and have been a leading voice in refuting misinformation about community broadband initiatives disseminated by established communications service providers and their supporters.

To acquire funding, we counsel broadband clients on identifying, understanding, applying for, and complying with federal and state support programs for rural areas and low-income subscribers. These game-changing programs include the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program; the Middle Mile Grant Program; the Digital Equity Act funding administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA); the FCC’s auction-based High Cost programs (such as the CAF II and RDOF auctions); the E-rate, Rural Health Care, Lifeline and High Cost programs administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company; Rural Utilities Service (RUS) support programs, and numerous other broadband accessibility and infrastructure support programs being implemented by the states.