The Federal Communications Commission wants SpaceX to give up a portion of the $885.51 million in broadband funding it was awarded in a reverse auction in December 2020. SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband division was one of the biggest winners in the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) grants announced in Ajit Pai's last full month as FCC chairman.
I have a deep appreciation for TDI, not just because of your expertise, but because I have a long history of working with you on the issues you care about. Before I came to the Federal Communications Commission, I served as legal counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee. I’m particularly proud to say that one of the highlights of my tenure is that I worked on the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. This law is terrific, but I also know we can’t rest on our laurels. Because the events of the past year and a half have changed our relationship with technology.
The Internet Atlas Project at the University of California, Berkeley's goal is to shine a light on long-term risks to the internet. We produce indicators of weak points and bottlenecks that threaten the internet’s stability. Our research shows that the internet is facing twin dangers; on one side, there’s the threat of total consolidation. Power over the internet has been increasingly concentrated primarily in the hands of a few, US-based organizations. On the other side, there’s fragmentation.
Three internet service providers responded to the Rappahannock County Broadband Authority’s official request for information (RFI), bringing the Virginia county one small step closer to procuring broadband for unserved areas. The authority sent the RFI to 13 commercial providers in June 2021 in the hopes of identifying a partner to develop the county’s broadband network and heard back from All Points Broad
Cisco released the US Municipal Infrastructure Index, a nationwide survey of city, county, town and tribal government leaders. The findings are clear: an overwhelming majority agree that broadband is “critical infrastructure” and placed essential upgrades in the top tier of their must-do projects in their locales. We found:
5G is considered a key technology for society, but its implementation is surrounded by controversy. Beyond its technical aspects, 5G has become a question of security and national interest for many EU Member States as well as an international policy issue. Technological autonomy and digital sovereignty are increasingly recognized as strategic priorities on a global scale, yet the EU's position is unique for two reasons. On one hand, the EU has unintentionally become part of the playing field in the US-China dispute over technology companies and 5G.
Multimillion-euro fines can force Big Tech companies to change their behaviour despite their deep pockets, according to French Competition Authority President Isabelle de Silva. She does not believe sanctions could be played down as merely “the cost of doing business,” breaking away from the consensus in the European Union, where competition officials have struggled for years to contain the market power of Big Tech despite levying billions of euros of penalties. Since June 2021, her office has hit Google with €720 million in fines in two separate cases.
© 1994-2024 Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. All Rights Reserved.
