Reporting

Clemson Rural Health—a unit of Clemson University’s College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences—is linking up with Seattle-based CRO Precia Group to bring more clinical trials to underserved rural populations. Precia, which was formed in 2020, usually focuses on addressing gender bias in clinical trials, particularly to increase the number of women participating in research studies. Ron Gimbel, the director of Clemson Rural Health, said the ultimate goal is to improve health outcomes through inclusive and decentralized clinical research.

Fiber network deployments in the US, while hitting a bit of a slowdown, are proceeding apace and will ramp up significantly as grants start to roll out from the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program in 2025.

The Federal Communications Commission is suggesting raising the national fixed broadband speed benchmark to 100/20 Megabits per second (Mbps) from its current definition of 25/3 Mbps.

Charter Communications is running a promotion in the Kansas City, Missouri, area that pitches a 1-Gigabit broadband service for $39.99 per month for a period of two years. Under the terms of the promotion, Charter is also tossing in a $100 Visa Rewards Card and offering a line of Spectrum Mobile for 12 months. Pricing on the 1-Gig promotion rises after a two-year period.

Schools across the country are under attack, increasingly held hostage to ransomware and other vicious online assaults costing more than $10 billion a year in downtime alone. Contracts, tax forms, and passports, along with social security numbers, birth dates, and addresses for students, parents, and staff are up for grabs on poorly secured networks that are easily taken hostage. This is why more than 1,100 school districts, along with nearly two dozen groups, signed a letter asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to react now.

Google will allow developers on its Play app store to offer direct payment options to users in the company’s latest move to navigate increased regulatory scrutiny of its power. Google will allow apps to charge consumers directly rather than having to charge through Google.

The holidays are all about trying to spend time with family—a hard thing to do when a family member is behind bars. And it's even harder if that person is held in a local jail, where there's been a growing trend away from in-person visits. "There's no more eye-to-eye, face-to-face visitation," says Maj. David McFadyen, the head of administrative operations for the sheriff's office in North Carolina's Craven County. Since the pandemic, the county jail has switched to a remote video system for family visits. It's not free; families pay the video service contractor $8 per 20 minutes. But Maj.

Hughes Network Systems, an EchoStar company, launched its third geosynchronous satellite — Jupiter 3 — in July 2023. The company recently announced new satellite internet plans for the lower 48 US states, leveraging the higher capacity of Jupiter 3. Hughes claims Jupiter 3 is the world’s largest commercial communications satellite, and it enables Hughes to deliver download speeds up to 100 Megabits per second.

Mayor Brandon Scott (D-Baltimore) announced FreeBmoreWiFi, a free, public WiFi network in the City of Baltimore, which will be implemented by the Office of Broadband and Digital Equity and funded by American Rescue Plan Act funds. The first locations that will be getting this free WiFi are Middle Branch Fitness and Wellness and the Solo Gibbs Recreation Center. The City aims to have the network up at all of Baltimore City's recreation centers by the end of 2024, with future expansion expected. "FreeBmoreWiFi is about more than internet access," says Baltimore City IT Director Todd Carter.

Tens of millions of U.S. consumers will get a payout as Google shells out $700 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit brought by state prosecutors over the high fees it charges app developers. Google will pay $630 million into a fund that will be divided among an estimated 102 million eligible consumers across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the settlement terms for Utah et al v. Google.