The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA has awarded five grants as part of the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program (CMC). These grants, totaling over $18.5 million, will expand community technology hubs, upgrade classroom technology, and increase digital literacy skills at five minority-serving institutions in California, Missouri, Louisiana, and Alabama. The CMC grants, directed by NTIA’s Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives, cover costs such as the purchase of high-speed Internet service and eligible equipment, the hiring and training of information technology personnel, and innovation and workforce development efforts.  The awards will help expand high-speed Internet access at the following educational institutions:

• California State University, Dominguez Hills (CA);
• California State University, Fresno (CA);
• Lincoln University of Missouri (MO);
• University of West Alabama (AL); 
• Southern University and A&M College (LA). 

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is clear: the $42.5 billion for broadband buildout should prioritize projects for the unserved. Specifically, states should prioritize projects where 80% of the locations served by the project are unserved. It may be impossible to reach all the unserved with projects that are 80% or more unserved without gerrymandering the project areas or changing the rules. Census block groups work well as a proxy for broadband project areas because they’re not too big and not too small. There are 5.9 million populated block groups nationally with an average of 24 housing units per block group. I’m not suggesting that project should follow block group boundaries, only that they work well as a visualization for the concentration of unserved locations. However, nationally, 1 million of the 7.8 million unserved locations are in block groups that are already 80%+ unserved. By contrast, 3.6 million unserved locations are in block groups that are less than 50% unserved. The only solutions I can think of are to allow gerrymandering of the project areas, relax the 80% rule, or include additional locations as unserved for the purpose of defining the project areas.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) launched a Request for Proposals (RFP) to award $67.6 million in broadband grants across the state. It further accelerates the Border-to-Border program in pursuit of Minnesota's 2026 goal that all homes and businesses have access to broadband with download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of at least 20 megabits per second. Eligible broadband providers can use grant funding to reimburse up to half the cost of broadband infrastructure deployed.  Applications must be received by March 2, 2023. Grants will be awarded in early summer, 2023. Additionally, Governor Walz commits $99.6 million in broadband grants for 61 projects in 48 counties, expected to connect to more than 33,000 Minnesota homes and businesses to high-speed broadband. It was the largest single investment in broadband in Minnesota history; before then, DEED had awarded nearly $130 million in Border-to-Border grants to connect more than 57,000 homes and businesses around Minnesota to high-speed broadband since the program's inception in 2014.

This summer, the mountains moved in Hoopa Valley (CA). As a wildfire burned through trees and vegetation, a thunderstorm dropped two inches of rain in one day. Meanwhile, online, residents were clamoring to Facebook to learn what had happened. Others started to email Frank, who serves as a youth coordinator with Save California Salmon and Miss Na:tini-we’, a cultural and political ambassador for the Hoopa Valley Tribe. She didn’t have any answers at first. Together with her coworkers, she tried to assess the damage, but there was no cell service, no cellular data, or internet near the river. It took three days before she could gather the information and find a connection to publish it online. But the demand for the internet has outstripped the region’s limited infrastructure. However, fall of 2022, the Hoopa Valley Utilities District received more than $65 million in funding from the federal government to improve its internet infrastructure. The new grant will expand the current wireless network and introduce underground cables that connect directly to homes. The expansion plans to connect 1,000 households in the tribe, 64 businesses, and 19 community institutions like schools and hospitals. The wires are just a start, though as many residents, especially older ones, need support learning how to use or trust technology.

Cellphone carriers facing roughly $200 million in fines for sharing their customers’ locations are for now shielded from paying by the Federal Communications Commission’s partisan deadlock. The FCC has four commissioners—two Democrats and two Republicans—and needs at least three votes to move forward with fines it proposed years ago on the biggest wireless-service providers. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, in August circulated four forfeiture orders penalizing AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile US, and Verizon Communications for allegedly mishandling access to the real-time whereabouts of their subscribers, the people said. The commission hasn’t yet published the forfeiture orders. The FCC can’t issue the orders without approval from at least three commissioners. The two Democrats on the commission have voted to approve the fines, while their Republican counterparts have yet to vote. 

Top cable industry analyst Craig Moffett issued a report with a provocative title, asking, “Is cable a good business?” Clearly, MoffettNathanson’s principal and senior analyst believes Wall Street doesn’t think so. The future of the cable business lies in how much it will cost to upgrade broadband service, whether that expands the customer base, and how much revenue each customer generates. Moffett points out that when Charter Communications announced its capital spending plans, all of the major publicly traded cable stocks fell, even though Charter’s news was that its spending would be less than Wall Street had expected. Investors are also concerned about the threat that fixed wireless presents to cable broadband, Moffett said. Longer term, the bigger threat to cable broadband is likely fiber rather than fixed wireless. But even with that, the analyst seems to be less concerned that cable operators will overspend on fiber or that overbuilders will present more competition.