Federal Agency

In 2020, the Federal Communications Commission committed to providing Starlink, a satellite internet network operating in 40 countries by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, with $885.5 million to expand broadband in unserved rural areas of the United States. But in August 2022, the FCC announced with almost no explanation that Starlink would receive nothing.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau granted six 900 MHz broadband segment licenses to PDV Spectrum Holding Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anterix. Anterix is the largest holder of 900 MHz spectrum nationwide and has been courting utilities, which are interested in the spectrum for private LTE as they look to modernize and future-proof critical power grid infrastructure. The licenses are in Vernon County, St Clair, Barton, Jackson, and Jackson counties (MO) and Jackson County (KS).

Big telecommunication companies (telcos) and almost every large cable company use what the industry calls "hidden fees." These fees are not mentioned when advertising for a service but are put onto customer bills. There is a class action lawsuit in California that shows why broadband providers are not worried about using hidden fees. In times past, when the big companies were regulated, they might have been ordered to make a 100% refund of a fee that regulators decided was questionable.

In January 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which proposed requiring internet service providers to display broadband consumer disclosure labels prominently at the point of sale.

Despite billions of dollars in one-time federal relief money to help students learn online at home during the pandemic, the so-called homework gap persists. In fact, some schools have stopped extending students and teachers without reliable internet the connectivity help they provided during the pandemic. Forty-five percent of public schools say they are still offering home internet to students.

In January 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which proposed requiring internet service providers to display broadband consumer disclosure labels prominently at the point of sale.

On October 17, trade groups NTCA, USTelecom, CTIA, and ACA Connects met Federal Communications Commission officials to discuss the Affordable Connectivity Program transparency proceeding. The associations offered proposals to maximize the effectiveness of the proposed data collection while keeping it streamlined and efficient for the benefit of consumers and providers alike.

Starry has defaulted on all of its $269 million of Rural Digital Opportunity funding (RDOF). There have been other defaults of RDOF, but no others of this magnitude. Starry is not required to disclose why it’s defaulting. Though, in the many articles about the RDOF default, there was a lot of speculation that the company doesn’t have the needed funding to complete the required builds. Starry reported 77,400 customers at the end of the second quarter of 2022 – gaining 14,300 customers in the quarter. The company claimed that it now passes 5.7 million potential customers.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe has worked hard to connect its northwestern Californian community to high-speed internet despite the barriers to access, adoption and application that Tribal members face.

The Federal Communications Commission is definitely not going to give broadband providers’ data-collection methodology confidential treatment unless they come up with different reasons than the ones being offered up by dozens of providers. In dozens of orders responding to the requests, FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Kirk Burgee said the argument that the providers’ fixed-broadband coverage methodology data is “highly sensitive in that it contains statements about the Company’s broadband network and service provision that is not generally publicly available” does not warrant that special treatme