Jon Brodkin

On October 17, 2022,  Jonathan Chambers received an email that wasn't meant for him.

A recent article about Silicon Valley residents who formed a co-op Internet service provider might have people wondering what it would take to get the same thing in their hometowns. The most obvious obstacle is the price—in Los Altos Hills, California, residents have had to pay anywhere from $5,000 to $12,000 upfront for a fiber-to-the-home Internet connection. But the company that built the Los Altos Hills network says its model isn't just for wealthy people. "This is not the 1 percent solution, as people derisively call it to my face," Next Level Networks CEO David Barron said.

The availability of faster Comcast uploads has a catch—users can only get the higher upstream speeds by purchasing xFi Complete, which adds $25 to monthly broadband costs. According to the company, "As markets launch, Xfinity Internet customers who subscribe to xFi Complete will have their upload speeds increased between 5 and 10 times faster." Additionally, Comcast is deploying the speed upgrade in the Northeast US over the next couple of months. Plans with 10Mbps upload speeds will get up to 100Mbps upload speeds once the new tiers roll out in your region—if you pay for xFi Complete.

Los Altos Hills Community Fiber (LAHCF) is a cooperative (co-op) broadband provider that gives multi-gigabit fiber Internet to dozens of homes and has a plan to serve hundreds more. Town residents were able to form the provider with the help of Next Level Networks, which isn't a traditional consumer broadband provider but a company that builds and manages networks for local groups. This was done to overcome frustrations residents have been having with providers like Comcast.

Big Tech companies shouldn't have to pay for Internet service providers' network-upgrade costs, a Google executive said amid a push in Europe to have tech companies pay for broadband expansions and improvements. In November 2021, the CEOs of 13 large European telecommunications companies called on tech giants to pay for a portion of the Internet service providers' network upgrade costs.

The State of Florida asked the US Supreme Court to reinstate its social media regulation law that made it illegal for sites like Facebook and Twitter to ban politicians. Florida's petition said the Supreme Court should answer the questions of whether the First Amendment prohibits states "from requiring that social-media companies host third-party communications, and from regulating the time, place, and manner in which they do so," and whether the First Amendment prohibits states "from requiring social-media companies to notify and provide an explanation to their users when they censor the u

Jared Mauch, the Michigan man who built a fiber-to-the-home Internet provider because he couldn't get good broadband service from AT&T or Comcast, is expanding with the help of $2.6 million in government money. In January 2021, Mauch was providing service to about 30 rural homes including his own with his internet service provider (ISP), Washtenaw Fiber Properties LLC.

When Zachary Cohn and his wife bought a house in the Northgate neighborhood of Seattle (WA), they didn't expect any trouble getting home Internet service. It was only after closing on the house in July 2019 that they learned the bad news. "All six neighbors I share a property line with are wired for Comcast, but our house never was," Cohn said. Comcast had wired up the neighborhood with cable decades earlier and provides high-speed broadband to the abutting properties.

A federal appeals court has reinstated a Texas state law that bans "censorship" on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, allowing Texas to enforce the law while litigation continues. A US District Court judge had granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law in December 2021, ruling that it violates the social networks' First Amendment right to moderate user-submitted content.

Elon Musk has claimed he is buying Twitter in order to protect free speech. But what does Musk mean by "free speech"? "By 'free speech,' I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people." There are multiple ways to interpret Musk's statement as it relates to United States law, particularly the First Amendment.