Released in October 2023, the Digital Access for All Idahoans (DAAI) Plan documents pervasive barriers to digital access and proposes a strategy to end digital access divides that prevent many Idahoans from accessing crucial technology. The DAAI plan aims to increase broadband affordability for Idahoans, as well as improve digital skills, cybersecurity awareness, access to devices, technical support, and access to public services. Idaho’s vision is to support all residents in thriving online through:

• Digital literacy, cybersecurity, and technical support—providing curated tools and resources to Idahoans to increase digital skills and online safety.
• Public services and resources—improving accessibility for Idahoans to connect and engage with local and state services.
• Affordable broadband and devices—ensuring Idahoans have broadband and internet-enabled devices that fulfill their unique work, school, and life needs.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted unanimously to suspend a crucial certification for LTD Broadband, dealing a blow to the company and its hopes of unblocking $311 million in federal cash to build infrastructure for high-speed internet across rural Minnesota. In December 2020, LTD won more than $1.32 billion nationally through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to develop blazing-fast internet in rural areas, including more than $311 million in Minnesota. The outcome shocked many in the telecommunications industry because LTD was relatively small and had little experience building the fiber-optic cable infrastructure required under the program. LTD was "unequal to the task of building out the vital infrastructure that the people of greater Minnesota need," wrote Assistant Attorney General Erin Conti in a letter to the PUC. The PUC decision came at an important juncture for LTD Broadband after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked a huge RDOF award in August 2022, saying at the time that LTD Broadband was not capable of building the fiber-optic cable networks it had promised. 

The battle for network neutrality (aka the open internet) is back. It’s something that should have been instituted years ago. In fact, it actually was on the books—until then-President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Ajit Pai, ditched the rules, largely at the behest of the big internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast. Net neutrality rules were not only on the books, but were also court-approved. That should have been the end of the matter. Instead, today we have no such rules. Without open internet rules, there is nothing to stop the telecom giants from throttling your service, blocking your access to the net, giving priority access to their own subsidiaries or giving preference to wealthy content providers willing to pay high rates for priority carriage. That means fast lanes for the well-to-do and slow lanes for the rest of us. Combining distribution control with content control is the essence of monopoly. It’s time to put the brakes on the ISPs. They should not be free from oversight, free to throttle, free to block, free to deny privacy, free to favor a few at the expense of the many, and free to run roughshod over perhaps the most liberating and opportunity-creating communications tool in all of history. So, get involved. Let the FCC, your elected representatives, your colleagues and friends know this is important to you and your country. Because it is.

[Michael Copps is a former FCC commissioner and chairman. He is special advisor on Media & Democracy Reform at Common Cause.]

The White House denounced Elon Musk for “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate,” for his endorsement of what an administration spokesman called a “hideous lie” about Jews. All of which might make one think the Biden administration was going to try to pull back from doing business with the world’s richest person. Except that, in recent weeks, the U.S. government has become more dependent on him than ever, agreeing to as much as $1.2 billion worth of SpaceX launches next year to put crucial Pentagon assets, including spy and command-and-control satellites, into space. And in September 2023, the Pentagon agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars for “Starshield,” a new, secure communications system his company has set up for the nation’s defense and intelligence systems, relying on the same clusters of Starlink satellites that have proved vital to Ukraine’s military during the war with Russia. In private, administration officials say the Starlink satellites are critical to deterring China because they are far more resistant to Chinese efforts to disable them than the Pentagon’s own communications satellites.

Telecommunications and cable companies are emerging as some of the biggest losers of the high interest rate era. Buoyed by a sudden increase in demand, many firms took on vast amounts of credit to boost spending on increasing download speeds through expensive fiber rollouts. Now, changing consumer behaviors are causing turmoil and pushing companies in the US and Europe to invest in new infrastructure. Business customers have shifted to cloud-based services that aren’t linked to their broadband provider, exposing workplace-focused telecommunications companies such as Lumen to competitive pressures that forced them to make pricey upgrades to expand their offerings. Home networks required overhauls too as people increasingly sought more bandwidth and faster connections for remote work. That’s led to a costly race for labor and components to build out fiber networks. Cable companies and mobile wireless carriers have rolled out their own home Internet solutions to compete.