Letter

Representatives of rural and Native communities share stories about the experience of lacking a broadband connection when the service is necessary to work, study, and obtain healthcare, safely. These brief anecdotes illustrate the negative impact that substandard service or lack of service has on the safety and wellbeing of rural and Native communities in general, and particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors offer the Federal Communications Commission 12 recommendations:

Short-Term Recommendations

Public Knowledge joined more than 30 public interest groups (including the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society), advocacy organizations, trade associations, academics, and former administration officials in a letter urging both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to support the Federal Communications Commission’s 

On April 24, 2020, Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai about how multiple local governments from California and New York asked for, yet were denied, a further 60-day extension of the comment period over the DC Circuit Court of Appeals remand in the FCC's net neutrality repeal (Mozilla Corp. v. FCC). The senators asked the FCC to reconsider this position and further extend the comment period given the crisis created by the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic.

In a letter sent to the Senate Commerce Committee, INCOMPAS highlights the risks to networks that support small businesses, schools and hospitals during COVID-19’s economic disruptions. The group is calling for an emergency fund to help small business customers who are unable to pay their bills, yet still need access to essential services during the pandemic and the recovery. “Small businesses are the engine of America’s economy. But Main Street simply will not run without broadband and voice communication services,” said Chip Pickering, CEO of INCOMPAS.

Sen Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) led a bipartisan group of senators to urge the leadership of both the Senate and House of Representatives to include $2 billion in the next coronavirus relief package to help health care providers expand telehealth services by improving their access to broadband. The senators are calling for $2 billion in additional funding to the Rural Health Care (RHC) Program, the only federal program that supports broadband deployment at urban and rural health care provider locations.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) sent a stinging letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai detailing the agency’s chronic failures to correctly map and support New York households with limited broadband access.

Reps Doris Matsui (D-CA), Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), along with 34 colleagues, sent a letter to House leadership, urging them to provide funding to support the development and deployment of open and interoperable radio access networks (RANs). RANs serve as the connection between phones or hotspots and a carrier’s core network and the internet. As mobile traffic continues to evolve – continued innovation is a necessity.

A letter to the bipartisan, bicameral leadership of Congress advocates for increased rural infrastructure funding in any future COVID-19 relief packages. The 258 local, state and national organizations called on Congress to “Ensure that our rural communities have access to: clean and safe drinking water and wastewater facilities, secure and dependable surface transportation, reliable and affordable power, healthcare, housing, and broadband and research institutions with state-of-the-art facilities, in order to thrive and attract future generations.

On May 1, 2020, Frontier respond to NTCA, NRECA and WISPA, who questioned claims made in Frontier’s challenge to the list of census blocks deemed initially eligible in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction. Frontier confirmed the vast majority of the census blocks listed in its challenge represent existing builds, including those undertaken as part of the Connect America Fund II program over the past five years.

Senate Homeland Security Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-MI) and Assistant Speaker of the Hosue Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) called for increased investments in rural broadband infrastructure to support Coronavirus response efforts in historically underserved communities. In a letter to Congressional leaders, the lawmakers called for the allocation of funding in the next Coronavirus relief package to ensure low-interest financing options are available to historically underserved communities and public-private partnerships to help deploy broadband.