Reporting

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which subsidizes broadband for low-income households, will officially stop accepting new enrollments after February 7, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gears up for the popular program to run out of funds this May.

It’s been over a year since AT&T and investment firm Blackrock established their Gigapower joint venture to build open access fiber networks and set a goal of reaching 1.5 million locations within 18 months. Until now, the company has made relatively few moves on that front.

A company best known for its posts on Instagram announced that it will try to capitalize on young people’s growing use of social media for news by teaming with a well known TikTok creator for political coverage this year. The company, Betches, said it will partner with the creator Vitus “V” Spehar a.k.a.

ESPN, Fox, and Warner are teaming up to create a supersize sports-streaming service that will offer content from all major leagues, a deal that will reshape the sports and media landscape. The as-yet-unnamed service will be offered directly to consumers, who would be able to stream a host of channels that are heavy in live sports, including ESPN, TNT, Fox, FS1 and ABC, the companies said in a statement. Each of the companies will have one-third ownership of the new service, which is expected to launch in the fall.

Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez, who joined the agency in September 2023, said that her top priorities for the FCC include setting the stage for vibrant competition and promoting connectivity for every consumer. Key to that connectivity is making spectrum available, which the Commissioner said is an area of top importance.

There’s a lot of talk in the financial world, speculating that Dish Network will file for bankruptcy. The talk seems to be stemming from the fact that Dish has made some complicated corporate and financial maneuvers in the last few months. In late 2023, EchoStar Corporation acquired Dish Network.

News companies are reversing course on hard subscriptions—once seen as a safer alternative to the volatile ad market—in favor of flexible paywalls, membership programs and more ads. A strategy focused mainly on subscriptions requires upfront spending on premium content. That takes time to pay off—and many publishers don't have the cushion for that in the current ad slowdown. At the same time, many outlets have learned that simply throwing a paywall up over your previously free content doesn't work either. It throttles ad revenue without capturing enough new subscribers.

Netflix confirmed that it has notified its customers in Florida that it will begin on February 15 adding to their monthly bills "the state tax rate" for streaming services, which is 5.07% of their regular fees. Netflix referred to 

Just about six months into his appointed role as broadband director for Nebraska, Patrick Haggerty is upbeat, positive, and taking on Nebraska’s BEAD deployment with a smile.

In January at the World Economic Forum, Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, called a nascent effort to detect artificially generated content “the most urgent task” facing the tech industry today. Now, Mr. Clegg has proposed a solution.