The two biggest cable companies, Comcast and Charter, have taken lots of public bows in 2020 talking about how they are making sure that homes with students have affordable broadband during the pandemic. Comcast is serving low-income students with its Internet Essentials product. Charter has a similar product called Spectrum Internet Assist that delivers 30/3 Mbps for $14.99 with a WiFi router for $5 per month.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) filed reply comments to the Federal Communications Commission focusing on the need for community-based outreach of the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program. In the comments, we recommended that the FCC allocate $30 million of its allowed $64 million in EBB program administration dollars to the states, tribes and territories to disburse for community-based outreach. Our main points:

Early in 2008, a group of people living in east-central Vermont, who understood the importance of the Internet to economic development, decided to act independently. They formed ECFiber, the EC standing for East-Central Vermont, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation with the goal of providing fiber access to every premises in 23 contiguous towns and one municipality in central Vermont. At the end of 2020, almost all of the roads in the original 23 towns have been provisioned with fiber.

I want to focus on one critical aspect of moving through and forward from this difficult time: bringing high-quality, affordable broadband into every home—something that’s at the heart of so many of the economic development priorities you are exploring during 2021’s conference. We can no longer defer the hard work on digital equity and believe that a future group and time will solve this issue.

NCTA members have connected over 10 million consumers to broadband internet through low-income broadband programs. The Federal Communications Commission is currently seeking public input on the program and will adopt program rules by the end of February. To rapidly connect more Americans to broadband using the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, NCTA recommends that the FCC:

The debate over reopening schools amid the ongoing pandemic is spilling into negotiations over billions of dollars in new money to help students who lack home internet access. As Democrats in Congress push forward with a plan to provide $7.6 billion for a program that provides discounted laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots to schools and libraries, Republicans are questioning whether the funding is necessary when President Joe Biden has said he wants to reopen a majority of public schools in the coming months.

Federal Communications Commissioners appeared divided on Feb 17 over how the $3.2 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit program funding should be distributed to Americans hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic — either by evenly prioritizing the funding to affected groups or targeting the money specifically to students.

House Commerce Committee Minority Leader Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Minority Leader Bob Latta (R-OH) sent a letter urging the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to prioritize unserved and rural areas for broadband deployment. As NTIA prepares to announce the requirements and allowed uses of grant funding to implement this program consistent with the law, they want to underscore two related aspects of program administration that are crucial to ensure that infrastructure funding is targeted effectively to the com

Public Knowledge joined Access Humboldt, Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, Consumer Reports, and New America’s Open Technology Institute (collectively PIOs) in filing comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Notice on the use of E-Rate funds to enable remote learning.

The Federal Communications Commission heard presentations from staff on the newly established emergency broadband program for struggling households, the next phase of the COVID-19 Telehealth Program, and the Commission’s efforts to collect more precise and granular broadband availability data: