Reporting

As part of an effort to accelerate the expansion of high-speed internet access, Colorado officials announced that broadband service providers can install fiber along the state’s roadways at a lower rate. The Colorado Transportation Commission approved a fee schedule that makes the Colorado Department of Transportation’s property available for broadband development. Under the new fiber access fee schedule, broadband providers can pay $0.10 per foot of fiber optic line in urban counties with populations above 200,000 people and $0.03 per foot in rural counties.

Although the Federal Communications Commission did not have its auction authority for most of 2023, some important events came to pass. The wireless industry lobbied much of the year for reallocation of spectrum in the 3.1-3.45 GHz band, which didn’t happen. The Biden Administration delivered a plan for a National Spectrum Strategy, which includes further study of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band.

The Universal Service Fund (USF) – which financially supports several of the Federal Communications Commission's high-cost and low-income broadband programs, at roughly $8 billion annually – has been going through a tough time. This past year saw the USF dragged before federal court in cases brought by a conservative public interest group questioning the fund's legality. The Fifth and Sixth Circuit courts initially ruled against the petitioners, but the Fifth Circuit then agreed to hear the case en banc in September and has yet to rule.

As the curtain begins to rise on the prospect of $42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) deployments, many are looking ahead to see what the historic investment will mean for broadband expansion. But before we turn our gaze toward the future, let's pause and reflect on the fiber milestones achieved thus far. A November 2023 analysis from New Street Research revealed that the telecommunications industry collectively increased fiber locations by 1.8 million in the third quarter of this year, with “most of the increase driven by AT&T.”

Although fiber was the talk of the town in 2023 – with state and federal governments doling out funding to support fiber projects – the cable industry also underwent some changes. Comcast began DOCSIS 4.0 rollouts. In October, it unveiled a new line of symmetrical multi-gig service with speeds of up to 2 Gbps. Another interesting development this year was the “relatively speedy evolution” of extended DOCSIS 3.1. Cable operators can extend DOCSIS 3.1 to buy more time before they need to upgrade to an end-to-end DOCSIS 4.0 system.

Broadband funding really got rolling in 2023, as the federal government began the process of its $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. To help states and territories with their challenge process, in April, National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) released draft guidance that expands upon the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) issued in May 2022. States got their BEAD allocations, with the highest funding amounts going to Texas ($3.31 billion), California ($1.86 billion), Missouri ($1.74 billion), Michigan ($1.56 billion) and North

Washington is battling over whether to keep the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) going — potentially cutting off more than 22 million households from a subsidy they’ve come to rely on. The ACP launched with bipartisan support in 2020, but is now trapped in a partisan war between Democrats who want to renew it, and Republicans worried it will let President Joe Biden take too much of a victory lap during a campaign year. If Congress can’t find a way to fund the program by spring, the federal government will have to quickly unwind it.

Google has tentatively settled a $5 billion lawsuit accusing the tech giant of secretly tracking the internet activities of millions of users who believed its Chrome browser protected their privacy while in “incognito” mode, according to court documents. The class action lawsuit, scheduled for a February 2024 trial, was temporarily halted by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers after a preliminary settlement was reached between Google and the consumers’ lawyers. The lawsuit, originally filed in 2020, claimed that users in “incognito” mode were misled by Google’s Chrome browser, thinking

When Alisa Gusterer tells farmers that her company’s technology can flag that their cows are getting sick before it actually happens, the most common response is happy disbelief.

Internet giants Comcast and AT&T are trying to prevent Oakland from receiving $14 million to build out its capacity for high-speed internet, the latest obstacle to the city’s efforts to close longstanding gaps in online access for its residents. In objections to Oakland’s latest share of a $3.87 billion California spending package, the two companies argued to the California Public Utilities Commision (CPUC) that the neighborhoods slated for enhanced fiber-optic infrastructure already enjoy faster internet speeds. Their evidence for that assertion has been kept confidential to everyone b