Press Release

As broadband needs continue to increase, service providers want to build a “No Regrets” fiber network capable of operating for decades and easily upgradable as user needs increase and technology evolves.

Nebraska Farm Bureau (NEFB) understands that access to high-speed, high-quality broadband service is essential to Nebraska’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. This is why the Nebraska Farm Bureau is excited to work with SpaceX’s Starlink, to better fulfill the broadband needs of all Nebraskans. This will provide Farm Bureau members with two months of free service, a nearly $200 value when subscribing to Starlink for high-speed broadband internet service in remote and rural areas in Nebraska.

One year after announcing the first awards under the American Rescue Plan Act's (ARPA) Capital Projects Fund (CPF) in 2022, the US Department of the Treasury has awarded approximately $6.7 billion for broadband, digital technology, and multi-purpose community center projects in 42 states, which those states estimate will reach more than 1.88 million businesses, homes and other locations. These ARPA dollars are working in tandem with the In

The 2023 5G Challenge is offering a $7 million prize pool for participants who successfully integrate their radio access network (RAN) subsystems with multiple other RAN participant subsystems and outperform their peers. Teams have progressed in testing since starting the challenge in late March. After the first nine weeks of host lab testing, the initial nine contestants have passed Stage Two wrap-around emulation testing. The following RU contestants passed Stage Two testing:

The Federal Communications Commission released Version 2 of the National Broadband Map. Three key takeaways from the latest data: 

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is opening an investigation into Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan. FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson recently resigned from her role after concerns about the integrity of the FTC under Chair Khan’s leadership, citing abuses of power and disregard for the rule of law and federal ethics standards.

Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) led Sens Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) to introduce the Language-Inclusive Support and Transparency for Online Services (LISTOS) Act to improve multilingual large language models, automated decision-making systems, and content moderation practices online to better protect non-English speaking communities. The LISTOS Act requires online platforms to consistently communicate and enforce their policies across languages and transparently report on the processes used to enforce policies.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) announced $60 million in awards through the Broadband Opportunity Program to expand broadband Internet access in Florida’s unserved communities. These awards will support 22 projects in 19 Florida counties for broadband Internet expansion that will impact nearly 58,000 unserved residential, educational, agricultural, business and community locations. Including today’s awards, more than $226 million has been awarded to expand broadband Internet access across the state, helping to connect more than 250,000 homes and businesses.

The Federal Communications Commission committed over $15 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

US Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) successfully pushed the Federal Communications Commission to update its National Broadband Map to more accurately reflect Nevada’s current broadband needs, which is critical for the allocation of funding for high-speed internet from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's (IIJA) $42 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. A previous, deeply flawed map misrepresented the high-speed internet coverage in Nevada and would have caused the state to lose out on potentially millions of dollars in BEAD funding.