Internet/Broadband

123NET, Michigan’s largest local fiber internet provider, announced its partnership with the Detroit Community Technology Project (DCTP) and Grace in Action Collectives (GIAC) to bring high-speed, low-cost internet to an underserved Detroit (MI) neighborhood as part of the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) in an undertaking known as Project OVERCOME. The one-year project aims to create long-term sustainable infrastructure for digital services to the Southwest Detroit neighborhood.

Wireless internet service providers (ISPs) have some modifications they are asking the Federal Communications Commission to make to its draft Affordable Connectivity Program broadband subsidy before it adopts the rules by Congress‘ January 14 deadline.

Federal funds and municipal bond money have flowed to school districts during the past two years to help connect students to the internet during the global pandemic. Some of this funding has helped create private LTE networks using CBRS spectrum under General Authorized Access. One of these networks serves Texas’ Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD). The network was designed to favor capital investment rather than ongoing operating expenses, since a windfall of funding was available from a bond and from the government’s Emergency Connectivity Fund.

Connected Nation’s “Connect K-12” program has released its report on US school connectivity for E-rate Funding Year 2021, which includes findings on the nation’s progress toward meeting the Federal Communication Commission’s bandwidth goal of 1 Mbps per student. Connect K-12 aggregates, analyzes, and visualizes federal E-rate program data at the district and state levels. Key takeaways from the report include:

The Senate confirmed Alan Davidson as the new head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, installing a new leader for the agency as it begins the process of distributing billions in federal funding for broadband. Davidson was approved by a vote of 60-31, making him the agency’s first permanent chief since David Redl left the post in May 2019.

President Biden has renominated Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to be a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). With Alan Davidson confirmed to lead the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), it is critical that we have a fully functioning FCC to implement much of the work Congress has directed the two agencies to do.

The New York City Department of Correction (DOC) has increased its use of tablets for individuals in custody since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to keep individuals connected to important resources, and plans are in place to continue to expand on the program even more. Tablets have proven to be a useful tool in improving behavior, offering classes and even as a substitute for the in-person visits curtailed by the pandemic. What initially started as a pilot program has since been expanded to allow the majority of inmates in DOC facilities to have access to a tablet.

The Federal Communications Commission says that the Supreme Court need not disturb an appellate decision ruling against the City of Eugene (OR) over its imposition of a seven percent fee on cable operators providing broadband Internet service that use municipal rights-of-way. The dispute partly stems from an FCC order governing franchising authority's ability to regulate cable operators’ provision of non-cable services.

In November 2021, Congress passed the long-stalled $1 trillion dollar bipartisan infrastructure package. This includes a $65 billion dollars in federal finding for broadband. This investment, which includes potentially hundreds of millions of dollars for Michigan to extend broadband to smaller towns and rural reaches, promises to stitch these communities and their residents into our global tech-driven economy — giving them a chance to learn and do business with the world.

Thanks largely to the federal infrastructure law and incoming funding, now is the time to develop the sorts of public-private partnerships to grow broadband access for all residents and businesses, experts contend. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment. It’s probably a once-in-a-century moment. This is the moment in which we will solve many of our broadband problems, as a nation,” said Joanne Hovis, president of CTC Technology & Energy [andBenton Institute for Broadband & Society Board Member]. Collaborations between the public and private sectors can take many forms.