NTIA Reports Federal Broadband Investments FY2022

WASHINGTON, August 8, 2024 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration released a report analyzing federal broadband investments in fiscal year 2022 on Wednesday.

The report was developed in accordance with the ACCESS BROADBAND Act of 2021, which requires the agency to submit an annual report to Congress detailing federal broadband investments, the economic impact and the number of U.S. residents receiving access to high-speed internet through those programs. The report includes spending data from 12 agencies across 70 federal high-speed internet programs.

The report includes data on Tribal broadband funding, federal programs at a state level and trends across three years of data since the ACCESS BROADBAND Act was enacted.

According to the report, federal agencies appropriated a combined $64.3 billion for high-speed internet initiatives in fiscal 2022 and $11.4 billion in obligations. According to agency data, federal outlays from broadband projects grew by 120 percent from fiscal 2021 to 2022, from %6.7 billion to $14.7 billion.

Additionally, 2022 data demonstrated “the beginning of significant new broadband affordability programs for low-income households.” It reported that 39 percent of the increase in Federal Communications Commission outlays came from the agency’s Affordability Connectivity Program, which was intended to subsidize high-speed internet subscriptions.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that there was a “considerable increase in projected households impacted by broadband subscriptions” in fiscal 2022. Household counts in funded service areas for broadband infrastructure build outs increased from about 69,000 households in fiscal 2021 to more than 132,000 in fiscal 2022.

In June, an NITA survey found that 13 million more Americans used the internet in 2023 than 2021, the largest increase in seven years.

Congress passed the NTIA Reauthorization Act in May that will bring oversight to the government’s broadband expansion efforts that are currently administered by 15 different agencies. The Act mandates that the NTIA develop a strategy for coordinating federal initiatives.