BETHLEHEM (August 22, 2025) – – Senator Lisa Boscola announced today that $5,257,109 in grant funding has been approved by the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority (PBDA) to provide greater access to broadband throughout the 18th Senatorial District through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.
“In today’s world access to broadband is critical for all our communities. Fast and reliable internet is a necessity not only to create jobs and fuel economic growth here in the Lehigh Valley, but also for families so they can have access to amenities that impact their daily lives such as health care and public safety and their children have access to improve their education,” Senator Boscola stated. “The BEAD program will allow broadband providers to lay more fiber in areas throughout the Lehigh Valley that have been underserved.”
The PBDA approved the funding that will allow Verizon, Comcast and Commonwealth Telephone Co. to install Fiber and Hybrid Fiber to provide access to necessary technology.
Statewide, 21 unique awardees were funded totally $793,494,747 in grants, which will mean 130,000 Pennsylvania homes and businesses will gain access to broadband. While the program required a 25% match, the private sector match for these grants totaled $650,000,000, which equates to a cumulative match of 80%.
“It should be noted that the grants in my Senate District are for fiber projects, which are the best, most reliable and scalable of the types of technology that were approved today by the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority,” Boscola added. “The private sector also realized that to be competitive for these grant awards that they would have to far surpass the match requirements, meaning that an additional $450,000,000 in private investment will be seen across the Commonwealth.”
The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program is a $42.45 billion federal funding program established by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The BEAD program aims to help everyone in America get affordable, reliable high-speed internet by funding infrastructure deployment programs. In June 2023, Pennsylvania received $1.16 billion in BEAD
funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to assist in the expansion of high-speed broadband infrastructure across the state.
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