Benjamin Din

Shawn Bone, a senior telecommunications counsel for Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA), is joining Verizon on October 11 as its director of federal regulatory public policy. Bone, who has worked for Senate Commerce Democrats for more than nine years, will focus on broadband at Verizon.

As another Covid-era school year begins, it’s not just local and state governments and internet providers that are desperate for broadband cash. A coalition representing schools and libraries is urging Congress to replenish funding for a Federal Communications Commission funding program aimed at boosting connectivity for students, school staff and library patrons.

As the House debates taking up the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure deal in tandem with Democrats’ partisan spending plan, lawmakers who work on telecommunications and technology issues used Aug 23's House Rules Committee hearing to outline their specific grievances with how Senate negotiators structured the $65 billion in broadband funding —complaints that are likely to pop up in other forms later this Congress. House Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ) told the Rules Co

Federal Communications Commission Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel expressed general support for the items in President Biden’s big competition executive order, but as the commission still lacks a Democratic majority, she declined to say when the agency might act on it. Biden’s requests for the FCC include reinstating net neutrality rules, helping ensure apartment dwellers have a choice of internet providers and imposing broadband pricing transparency — all ideas she endorsed.

Tim Wu, President Joe Biden’s competition adviser on the National Economic Council, said “There is a growing sense that the forms of market power we see today are often different from the ones that the merger guidelines had in mind.

The House Commerce Committee will delve into a slate of nine bills aimed at securing wireless networks. The bills focus on changes to the Federal Communications Commission and National Telecommunications and Information Administration related to both tech and cybersecurity policy, with an eye toward Chinese dominance in telecoms.

Georgia-based electric utility Southern Company told the Federal Communications Commission  that, based on its testing, the unlicensed Wi-Fi use the agency has voted to allow in the 6 GHz band will disrupt incumbent services that utilities offer.

The Federal Communications Commission is emerging as a key part of the still-murky framework that President Joe Biden and a bipartisan crew of centrist senators rallied around.

Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill’s commerce panels can’t wait to mark up the broadband portions of the Biden administration’s proposed infrastructure legislation — though the timing still hinges on whether President Joe Biden nails down bipartisan consensus with Republicans or Democrats decide to go it alone. House Commerce Committee Democrats want to mark up their LIFT America Act, H.R.

A day after Vice President Harris held a discussion about broadband with members of Congress, key lawmakers came away heartened — despite worsening odds that the parties will be able to bridge their differences about the administration’s infrastructure ambitions.