Letter

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.

The Universal Service Administrative Company’s estimate of demand for the Schools and Libraries Universal Service Support Mechanism discounts (also known as the E-rate) for Funding Year (FY) 2020 is $2.91 billion, of which $1.74 billion is for Category 1 services (mainly broadband internet access service) and $1.17 billion is for Category 2 services (mainly internal connections).

On March 19, 2020, Sens Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tina Smith (D-MN) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to urge the FCC to take action to ensure that all K-12 students in Minnesota have access to high-speed internet so they can continue their education while schools are closed in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Over 75 Members of Congress sent a letter to Congressional leadership requesting emergency funding for mental health disorder and addiction treatment providers across the country. As the nation grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, many behavioral health organizations (BHOs) are at risk of closing their doors as a result of the pandemic.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society joined Public Knowledge and 216 other public interest, government, industry, civil rights, rural advocacy, and academic groups — alongside schools and libraries — in a letter urging Congress to support access to affordable broadband internet in forthcoming COVID-19 stimulus packages.

A report that summarizes the need to connect millions of K‐12 students to the Internet from their home because they lack adequate internet access. These students cannot attend school, submit homework, or take tests online. An estimated $7.5 billion is required to provide these students with a secure and reliable network connection and connected learning device. Funds For Learning estimates that a total of $5.25 billion in E-rate discounts would be required, and the remaining $2.29 billion would be paid by schools and libraries with funding from other sources.

On April 10, 2020, Frontier Communications submitted a limited challenge in the above-referenced docket seeking to exclude more than 16,000 census blocks from eligibility in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (“RDOF”) Phase I auction. Appendix 1 of the Frontier Challenge lists census blocks where Frontier asserts that it “has deployed broadband service at speeds of 25/3 Mbps since Frontier’s June 2019 Form 477 and that appear on the Bureau’s preliminary list.” If successful in its entirety, an estimated 400,000 Americans would live in areas that would not be eligible this year for RDOF supp

The Colorado Broadband Office (CBO) wrote to ask Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to extend the October 22, 2020 opening of the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund 904 Auction (RDOF 904 Auction) and the Rural Tribal Window timeline, set to close on August 3, 2020, by 180 days respectively. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the internet is critical infrastructure and having the ability to virtually conduct business, video conferences with medical professionals, and access online education has become essential for everyone, everywhere.