A small community in Louisiana has needed better broadband for years, and new federal funding is supposed to make that happen. But a major telecom provider is standing in the way of that help, painting a picture of what’s happening as these funds get distributed around the country.

East Carroll parish is in a standoff with ISP provider Sparklight over $4 million in funding for faster, more affordable internet access, my colleague Issie Lapowsky reports.

• The state of Louisiana awarded one rural ISP, Conexon Connect, a grant to serve the parish, which would kick out Sparklight as the area’s internet provider. So Sparklight protested it.
• But residents say Sparklight’s service is weak, and they aren’t convinced it’s protesting in good faith. “It seemed like a last-minute effort to block competition,” Nathaniel Wills, an organizer with a church group that’s fighting for better broadband in the area, told Issie.

This fight is important because of something even bigger: $42.5 billion in Congressional broadband funding is about to flow into states. And as Conexon CEO Jonathan Chambers put it, that means “it’s going to get worse.”

• In Louisiana alone, 15 other broadband grants that have already been awarded are being contested by telecom giants, and similar fights are happening around the U.S.

There are ways to solve these problems. Minnesota has rules that punish telecom companies that challenge a broadband grant if they then fail to deliver service.

• Other states make companies show where they already offer service up front, so they can pinpoint the areas that are eligible for funding.

Distributing these broadband grants will be messy. But if there’s anyone who might be able to stop ISPs’ bullying tactics, Chambers told Issie he thinks it would be the agency approving grants in the first place: the NTIA.

— Sarah Roach