July 2022

I’ve already written about the complexity of applying for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants. Unfortunately, the paperwork doesn’t stop there. There are reporting requirements both for States and for grant recipients that begin when grant funds have been awarded that ask for a lot more information than any other grant I can recall. The requirements for States matter because States will likely request much of the same information from each grant recipient.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau waives the Tribal-specific interim and final performance deadlines of the FCC’s rules for all 2.5 GHz Rural Tribal Priority Window licensees to afford them flexibility as they complete their deployments. All Tribal Window licensees will instead be subject to the generally applicable performance deadlines for all other 2.5 GHz licenses initially granted after October 25, 2019. As such, Tribal Window licensees must make an interim showing within four years of initial license grant and a final showing within eight years

The June 2022 Ookla data tries to spin a rosy picture of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet performance since its November 2020 public beta launch. While early Starlink users once swooned over the service because they had the only dish in town, they now find their once-speedy connections slowly sliding back to DSL/basic cable-esque performance with more people on the system. The performance slide comes at a time when SpaceX is trying to get its next-generation Starship off the ground, the only rocket capable of carrying its satellites in sufficient quantities.