Reporting

BEAD Buy America Goals Get a Boost from Adtran

Adtran will invest up to $5 million in its Huntsville, Alabama, manufacturing facility to support domestic manufacturing of fiber broadband equipment.

X Slows Down Access to Some Rival Sites

X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, slowed down access from its platform to rival sites such as Substack and Facebook, but has begun reversing an effort to restrict its users from quickly viewing news sites. The slowness, known in tech parlance as “throttling,” initially affected rival social networks including Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram, as well as the newsletter site Substack and news outlets including Reuters and The New York Times.

More than 20 million Americans enrolled in a federal program for subsidized internet access

More than 20 million US households are now receiving discounts on internet service as part of Federal Communications Commission's Affordable Connectivity Program. The program has continued to gain more than half a million new households a month since February 2023.

Biden administration urges Supreme Court to block Texas social media law

The Biden administration on Monday told the Supreme Court it should overturn the 5th Circuit Court’s decision to uphold a controversial Texas social media law, calling on the high court to take up a pair of cases that could have broad implications for the future of online speech. At stake are two laws passed in Texas and Florida in response to allegations that tech companies censor conservative viewpoints.

An Internet Veteran’s Guide to Not Being Scared of Technology

How can we protect ourselves from A.I.? That was the question that Mike Masnick found himself fielding this summer in a WhatsApp chat with about 100 directors, actors and screenwriters. The group, including marquee talent, was worried about a grim possible future in which deepfake versions of actors perform screenplays written by ChatGPT.

Albuquerque (NM) now has a broadband office

For the city of Albuquerque (NM), providing high-quality and affordable internet is a priority. The majority of households are connected, but that doesn’t mean everybody that needs it has it and it doesn’t mean it’s affordable or reliable. Albuquerque needs more competition, more providers, better infrastructure to fill in the gaps and more affordable options. What the broadband office is dong to fill in those gaps is:

Consolidated Public-Private Partnership Gets Set to Reach Vermont Broadband Milestone

Consolidated Communications expects to complete work by November 1, 2023 on a Vermont broadband deployment project funded, in part, by the state. The project is being done through a public-private partnership with the Southern Vermont (SoVT) communications union district (CUD). When completed, that CUD will be the first in the state to achieve universal broadband coverage. The SoVT CUD received a $9 million grant from the Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB) in October 2022.

Missouri BEAD funds a testament to underserved population

Missouri was among the lucky winners of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, receiving the third highest allocation at $1.74 billion. But whether that amount will be more than enough or just right to cover all unserved and underserved locations is “the ultimate question,” said BJ Tanksley, director of Missouri’s Office of Broadband Development. “I think the thing about this is it also is a call to us, there’s just a lot of work to be done across the state.” Tanksley said that while Missouri “always predicted” it would receive a relatively high BEAD allotment, the stat

Convergence occurring 'at an unprecedented pace,' NCTA's new CTO says

Policies, regulations and standards governing video and broadband remain vitally important to the "cable" industry. But the cable industry is now keeping close tabs on other critical areas that weave into the broader telecommunications sector as cable operators move rapidly into mobile and wireless and explore ways to fully converge their networks and services. Meanwhile, those same operators must also get engaged with standards and policies focused on new and emerging categories such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI). That's all to say that Dr.

The Dream Was Universal Access to Knowledge. The Result Was a Fiasco.

The latest battle between free and expensive information started with a charitable gesture. Brewster Kahle runs the Internet Archive, a venerable tech nonprofit. In that miserable, frightening first month of the Covid pandemic, he had the notion to try to help students, researchers and general readers.