Reporting

Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O'Rielly said he's unsure whether his agency has the authority to carry out President Donald Trump's executive order targeting tech firms' legal protections. President Trump's order seeks to have the FCC craft regulations limiting the scope of legal immunity that online platforms have under federal law.

Twitter introduced a new feature that prompts users to read links to articles before sharing them.

The nonprofit has said its National Emergency Library was a public service to people unable to access libraries during the pandemic, but publishers and authors accused it of theft.

More than 9 million students still don’t have the high-speed home Internet required for online learning. One hopes the recent attention on the home Internet digital divide will be a call to action for our government and society that results in real change. But given that we can’t look to the telecom industry to solve this problem, what can be done?

When Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen forged a deal to acquire Boost from Sprint -- the takeover target of T-Mobile US -- the hope was it would lead to a new nationwide wireless carrier.

The Federal Communications Commission has reversed course on whether to let SpaceX and other satellite providers apply for rural-broadband funding as low-latency providers. But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said companies like SpaceX will have to prove they can offer low latencies, as the FCC does not plan to "fund untested technologies."  Chairman Pai's original proposal classified SpaceX and all other satellite operators as high-latency providers for purposes of the funding distribution, saying the companies haven't proven they can deliver latencies below the FCC standard of 100ms.

Native Americans who live in the Navajo Nation along the remote borders of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico often have a lack of running water, limited Internet access, and now soaring cases of covid-19.

Mississippi is now seeing how legislation can swing open the door for rural broadband expansion. In Jan 2019, former Gov Phil Bryant (R-MS) signed the Mississippi Broadband Enabling Act, removing a 1942 regulation that prevented electric cooperatives from offering anything other than electricity to their members.  Since the bill was approved, nine of Mississippi’s 25 electric co-ops are in the process of building fiber to the home in their coverage areas, said Brandon Presley, northern district commissioner of the Mississippi Public Service Commission.

Cox Communications is lowering Internet upload speeds in entire neighborhoods to stop what it considers "excessive usage," in a decision that punishes both heavy Internet users and their neighbors. Cox, a cable company with about 5.2 million broadband customers in the United States, has been sending notices to some heavy Internet users warning them to use less data and notifying them of neighborhood-wide speed decreases.

The Wireless Broadband Alliance trying make Wi-Fi roaming as easy as cellular roaming with the acceptance of Cisco Systems’ OpenRoaming technology. WBA is inviting organizations in the Wi-Fi ecosystem to join the WBA OpenRoaming program and become part of a globally available Wi-Fi federation that offers automatic and secure connection to millions of Wi-Fi networks. The idea is to create a world where Wi-Fi users move from one network to another without needing to constantly re-register or sign in.