In the late hours of Thursday, September 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall at Keaton Beach (FL). On Friday, downgraded to a tropical storm, Helene made its way up the east coast, leaving a path of destruction through Georgia and the Carolinas. Particularly hard hit was Western North Carolina, with entire towns submerged underwater, and mountain communities turned into islands. In the days that followed, as images of the devastation slowly came out and folks desperately tried to contact their loved ones, residents were hampered by telecommunications outages throughout the disaster area. On September 28, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported that nearly 75 percent of cell sites in North Carolina’s disaster area were out of service, leaving much of the region without communications services. Nearly three weeks after the storm, communities have banded together to aid in recovery efforts. However, the mountains are, in general, rural and sparsely populated, making it difficult to get food, water, and other supplies to residents in need. This is compounded by the destruction of large chunks of roads, hampering transportation and efforts to repair damaged telecommunications, water, and electric infrastructure. 

The Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act directed the Federal Communications Commission to incorporate maternal health data into its Mapping Broadband Health in America platform. The agency took this task seriously and on June 20, 2023, first introduced this information on the platform, including public data about maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, as well as facts about race and ethnicity, maternal age, rurality, areas with maternity care deserts, and areas with shortages of mental health care providers. Since the launch of this platform, the FCC has worked to engage a variety of stakeholders to evaluate what additional data we should incorporate into this effort. To this end, on October 20, 2023, the FCC released a Notice of Inquiry seeking input and ideas about how to expand, enhance, and refine the platform to help address maternal health outcomes and promote data driven decision making. On November 17, 2023, the FCC also co-hosted a roundtable with the Department of Health and Human Services on the “Connected Future of Maternity Care” to discuss the role of broadband as a social determinant of health, the implications of this framework to improve maternal health outcomes, and the importance of cross-agency, cross-sector coordination for leveraging broadband to help address the maternal health crisis facing our nation.... We have curated an expanded set of maternal health and broadband data variables that can offer additional perspective on maternal healthcare. To do this, we worked closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to identify “proxy” variables that address existing gaps in reportable maternal mortality and morbidity data due to privacy considerations.  As a result, the updated platform will allow users to select key maternal health risk factors, including gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, and prepregnancy obesity. 

UScellular is selling a portion of its spectrum licenses to Verizon for $1 billion as it looks to monetize the spectrum that wasn’t included in the proposed sale to T-Mobile. The deal includes the sale of 663 million megahertz point-of-presences of its cellular spectrum licenses. A point-of-presence refers to a physical location which connects users to the internet. Under the terms of the agreement, UScellular will also sell 11 million megahertz point-of-presences of its advanced wireless services, and 19 million megahertz point-of-presences of its personal communications services licenses. Each transaction is dependent upon the closing of the proposed sale of the company’s cellular wireless operations and select spectrum assets to T-Mobile.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel its October 2024 Porker of the Month for her decision to block funding for Starlink to deploy satellite internet service in hard-to-reach areas of the country. The FCC approved and then revoked SpaceX Starlink’s $885.5 million competitive award under the Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF).  But when Elon Musk’s Starlink was needed for rural areas that were cut off after Hurricane Helene, the FCC woke up from the dead and suddenly said OK. If Starlink or any other satellite connectivity had been available, those communities would have been able to get back online faster after Helene. But that was not done because Chairwoman Rosenworcel cut their RDOF funding because she wants more competition.