The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society reports…

The public comment period on the application paperwork for a revived Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program closes today, October 26, 2026. And in a brief filing last week, the federal government told a court that a December opening is still the plan.

On October 23, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) and the government filed a joint status report in National Digital Inclusion Alliance v. Trump. The filing runs two pages. Its substance is a single sentence: the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) “remains on track to publish the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program and the application for that program in December 2026.”

For readers coming to this cold: the Digital Equity Act of 2021 created the Competitive Grant Program to fund digital inclusion work by local governments, nonprofits, Tribes and Native entities, community anchor institutions, school districts, and workforce organizations. President Donald Trump terminated the program in May 2025. NDIA sued. In July 2026, Judge John D. Bates held that one of the Act’s eight “covered populations”—individuals who are members of a racial or ethnic minority group—is an unconstitutional racial classification, but that the provision can be set aside while the rest of the statute continues to operate. The government then told the court it would reinstate the program without that provision through a new Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).¹