Jake Neenan

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) released an updated version of its Connect America Fund Broadband Map. The map shows locations where broadband infrastructure has been deployed with subsidies from the Connect America Fund.

The US Chamber of Commerce is asking a federal appeals court to vacate the Federal Communications Commission’s recent digital discrimination order. As mandated by the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, the commission adopted rules in November 2023 to prevent gaps in broadband access based on race, income level, and other demographic characteristics – known as digital discrimination.

Experts disagreed on the potential for artificial intelligence to aid broadband mapping efforts at a House Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing. Courtney Lang, a vice president at tech industry trade group ITI, said AI could be used to improve the quality of current broadband maps. A machine learning model could do that by using past data to identify buildings that are likely to be accurately marked as having adequate broadband, according to Lang. But Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, urged caution.

In the months before President Joe Biden signed the historic infrastructure law on November 15, 2021, Republicans and Democrats wrangled over how much to spend on broadband. Democratic lawmakers sought $100 billion, while their Republican counterparts countered with $65 billion. The final score was $65 billion, with $42.5 billion of that earmarked for infrastructure in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program.

Virginia became the second state in the nation to begin its Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program challenge process, kicking off the process one week after approval of its plan by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Virginia’s challenge process is being carried out through a partnership with Virginia Tech Center for Geospatial Information Technology—to provide the challenge process portal—and Ready, which is supporting Virginia’s challenge effort with its public map and speed test portal. Virginia has identified 134,221 unserved and 27,806 unders

Director of the Illinois Office of Broadband, Matt Schmit, has been working for over 20 years in economic development, and began his public interest career as a grad student at University of Minnesota. There, he spent his spare time doing consulting work with local communities to take stock of their connectivity needs and make use of federal broadband funding programs.