Reporting

Many Americans take a solid internet connection for granted. Many others, however, are living in areas where they can't even get online. Now, the US government is working to bridge the digital divide by expanding access to broadband. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is leading the Biden administration's $65 billion broadband push, which is part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The goal is make broadband universally available in the next five years, and a plan to lower the cost of the utility is also in place. "Broadband isn't a luxury anymore.

Presidential politics is serving tech leaders something they're not used to: irrelevance. From low-polling tech founder candidates to low-impact mega-donors, big tech wallets are finding it hard to make a dent in the 2024 race. The leading 2024 candidates — President Biden (D) and former President Trump (R) — are the biggest Silicon Valley skeptics in the field.

Representatives for T-Mobile and Ka’ ena Corporation met with Federal Communications Commission officials to argue why T-Mobile should be able to acquire Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile from Ka’ ena. According to a June 5 , 2023 filing with the FCC, T-Mobile presented a PowerPoint spelling out why the transaction will not harm the competition or consumers.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed into law a so-called “digital bill of rights” aimed at giving residents more control of their data, boosting children’s protections online, and barring social networks from coordinating with government officials to “censor” speech. It marked the latest broadside from a Republican presidential contender against Silicon Valley, which is poised to be a significant target as the 2024 campaign heats up.

Flume, a service provider operating in New York City, metro Los Angeles, and Connecticut, has a rather unique business model. It offers fiber broadband but has very little fiber infrastructure of its own. “In the metro core, there’s a lot of overbuilt fiber,” said Prashanth Vijay, Flume co-founder and CEO. In some cases, the fiber may have been installed by a utility company, cell tower company, or another entity that doesn’t offer residential broadband.

Windstream will walk away from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy for good following a decision from the Federal Communications Commission to waive a rule that prohibits US telecommunications carriers from having more than 25% ownership by foreign companies. The FCC waiver is the final stamp of approval for Windstream’s plan of reorganization, for which the Bankruptcy Court gave the go-ahead in June 2020.

Former FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly called the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) "the best mechanism we've had to date" for subsidizing low-income broadband. But he added that the current Congress is unlikely to pass funding for the ACP without changes to the program.  According to O'Rielly, Congress will want to address waste, fraud, and abuse with the program, and likely limit its eligibility. By some estimates, up to 40% of Americans currently qualify for the program. "That's probably not suitable for policymakers that I talked to on Capitol Hill.

Telecommunications ministers from at least 18 European Union countries have rejected a proposal by network operators to have major technology companies fund the rollout of 5G and broadband. The proposal, put forward by lobbying groups GSMA and ETNO (which represent 160 operators across Europe), says that big tech companies that account for more than 5% of a provider’s peak average internet traffic should help foot the bill for rolling out the services across Europe.

Block Island, located just 12 miles south of mainland Rhode Island, has launched a municipal broadband network in partnership with Sertex Broadband Solutions. Dubbed BroadbandBI, the gigabit fiber network will power the town of New Shoreham, which has a population of roughly 1,000 people. New Shoreham initially struck a partnership with Sertex in 2017 to build a municipal broadband network serving community anchor institutions, such as schools, libraries, and hospitals. That network was completed in 2019.

As an aging workforce and a lack of interest among young people threaten to derail nationwide broadband buildout plans, the industry’s stakeholders must come together to tackle what has become a massive fiber workforce shortage, said Deborah Kish, VP of workforce development at the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA). The Government Accountability Office estimated that around 34,000 workers might be needed in 2023 to support the government’s broadband expansion programs, depending on unpredictable project timelines. And the workforce sh