DigitalC wins three Broadband Communities Awards for Cleveland model
DigitalC, a Cleveland-based nonprofit technology social enterprise, has taken three awards at the 2026 Broadband Communities Summit in Houston, including Broadband Provider of the Year, the Customer Experience Award, and the Broadband Visionary Award for chief executive Joshua Edmonds. Conference officials said the 2026 cycle drew a record number of entries, with winners selected by an independent judging panel.
The organisation launched its citywide broadband initiative in 2024 in partnership with the City of Cleveland, Cleveland City Council, the state of Ohio and a consortium of philanthropic backers including the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation. From that standing start, DigitalC completed a next-generation citywide network in under 18 months, a timeline that would challenge many commercial operators. As of the awards announcement, the network has connected more than 12,500 households, representing in excess of 31,000 residents, to home broadband, while a parallel digital-skills programme has reached more than 30,000 residents.
The model and its reach
Edmonds framed the recognition as validation of what he described as a community-based approach that refuses to trade affordability for quality. "We set out to solve for affordability without compromising quality and to give residents the connectivity experience they deserve," he said. "We've moved from impossible to impactful, and this recognition shines a national spotlight on what this model can achieve when public, private and philanthropic partners come together around a shared vision."
DigitalC's Customer Experience Award citation specifically noted straightforward pricing, local installation support and digital-skills resources as differentiators. The Broadband Provider of the Year designation points to the organisation's partnerships and service innovation. DigitalC has already begun exporting the Cleveland model to Detroit, with backing from Rocket Community Fund, suggesting the playbook is being treated as portable beyond its originating city. The 2026 honours add to a growing body of external recognition that includes a 2025 Fierce Network Innovation Award for digital-divide impact, won alongside Tarana Wireless, and a place on the National Digital Inclusion Alliance's honour roll of low-cost internet plans.
Market context and policy read-across
DigitalC operates in a policy environment shaped by the US government's Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) programme, which has allocated approximately $42 billion in federal funds to expand access in unserved and underserved areas. That capital is flowing through state governors' offices, and states are setting their own affordability and speed requirements as conditions of award. Nonprofit and community-anchor models are increasingly cited by policymakers as a way to reach low-income urban households that commercial last-mile operators have historically found unprofitable to serve.
The digital-divide space has attracted a mix of incumbent cable operators, fixed-wireless access providers using spectrum such as CBRS and licensed mid-band, and mission-driven models like DigitalC's. Tarana Wireless, referenced in DigitalC's 2025 award, supplies non-line-of-sight fixed-wireless radio equipment that lowers deployment costs in dense urban environments, which may partly explain the speed of Cleveland's network build.
For enterprise and infrastructure observers, the DigitalC case study is relevant as evidence that public-private-philanthropic structures can deliver large-scale connectivity projects at competitive pace. How replicable the model proves in cities without a similarly aligned municipal government and philanthropic base will be the critical test as DigitalC courts additional expansion markets.