Wednesday, April 10, 2024
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Today | Legislative Proposals To Support Patient Access To Telehealth Services
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FCC Announces the Maximum Partial Reimbursement Amounts for May 2024 ACP Benefits
The Black Market That Delivers Elon Musk’s Starlink to U.S. Foes
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Equity
Spectrum
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The Federal Communications Commission announced the maximum partial reimbursement amounts for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) benefits passed through to ACP households by providers who elect to claim reimbursement for the May 2024 service month. Absent additional funding from Congress, April 2024 will be the last month for which ACP households can receive the full ACP benefit. The maximum reimbursement amounts for May 2024 will be $14 for Non-Tribal Service, $35 for Tribal Lands Service, and $47 for the ACP Connected Device Benefit. These maximum benefit amounts for May were calculated by comparing the estimated funding needs for May to the total non-obligated funds available in April 2024.
The inaugural cycle of the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Grant Program is now open for applications from eligible organizations from across the globe. Applications can be submitted via the online application platform up until 20:00 UTC on 24 May, 2024. In this first cycle of the ICANN Grant Program, up to $10 million in grants will be distributed for projects that are consistent with ICANN's mission and aligned with the objectives of the ICANN Grant Program. Applicants can seek awards between $50,000 and $500,000 in this first cycle for projects up to 24 months in duration. Any organization interested in applying should review the program materials and review the Applicant Guide for more information on eligibility requirements and how to apply here. The ICANN Grant Program is a unique opportunity to make a difference in the Internet ecosystem and to positively impact people around the world through creative and innovative solutions that further ICANN’s vision of a single, open, and globally interoperable Internet.
Justice Department to Publish Final Rule to Strengthen Web and Mobile App Access for People with Disabilities
Attorney General Merrick Garland signed a final rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to ensure the accessibility of web content and mobile applications (apps) for people with disabilities. This final rule clarifies the obligations of state and local governments to make their websites and mobile applications accessible. Every day, people across the country use the web and mobile apps to access public programs and services, including emergency information, courts, healthcare providers, schools, voting information, parking, permit applications, tax payments, and transit updates. If these technologies are not accessible, it can be difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to access critical services. Consequently, individuals with disabilities may be excluded from accessing public services that other people routinely use. The final rule mandates technical standards for state and local governments to help ensure the accessibility of their programs and services provided through the web and mobile apps. By providing clarity on how to make sure these platforms are accessible for people with disabilities, this final rule advances the ADA’s promise of a more inclusive society.
A Holistic Vision for Digital Skills in the Heart of the Midwest: How Illinois is Investing its Digital Equity and Broadband Funds
The federal Digital Equity Act and the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program will collectively send more than $1 billion to Illinois, and state officials have been working for more than a year to lay out their roadmap for implementation. The State Digital Equity Plan describes how Illinois officials envision supporting broadband adoption, digital devices, and digital skills, while the BEAD 5-year Action Plan and Initial Proposal Vol. II lay out the state’s plans for building out broadband access and increasing affordability and adoption for the 12+ million residents of Illinois. Some highlights of the plan include:
- Building on local momentum
- Intentional connections to broader statewide goals
- Investments in digital skills will help achieve broadband adoption goals
- An emerging partnership with workforce development
- Key stopgap investments to support practitioners on the ground
- A commitment to shared data
They’re calling it a moonshot—akin to sending men to the moon in the 1960s. It’s all about developing a dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) framework to share spectrum between the Department of Defense (DoD) and commercial wireless users. Establishing a secure, nationwide DSS system that operates at light speed will be challenging and require some super brainy people, but DoD Chief Information Officer John Sherman said he’s motivated by it all. The moonshot will be focused initially on the 3.1-3.45 GHz band, led by the DoD and National Information and Telecommunications Administration (NTIA) with participation from academia and industry. It follows on the Biden Administration’s National Spectrum Strategy and implementation plan for it, as well as the Emerging Mid-Band Radar Spectrum Sharing, or EMBRSS effort, and the Partnering on Advanced and Holistic Spectrum Solution, or PATHSS. One of the objectives of the government’s DSS effort is the development of a next-generation spectrum sharing prototype. They’re also talking about leveraging open Radio Access Network (RAN) and more specifically, the Radio Intelligent Controller (RIC) to ensure that sharing is quickly and efficiently implemented in commercial networks and that existing infrastructure is part of the process.
More Than 200 Groups Urge Leading Tech Platforms to Implement Election-Integrity Policies to Protect Democracy Worldwide
A coalition of more than 200 civil-society organizations, researchers and journalists sent a letter to the top executives of the leading social-media platforms that calls on them to strengthen platform-integrity efforts to protect democratic elections worldwide in 2024. The letter, which was sent to top executives at Discord, Google, Instagram, Meta, Pinterest, Reddit, Rumble, Snap, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter and YouTube, urges these companies to make six distinct interventions to keep online platforms safe and healthy in 2024. These include investing in greater platform accountability by reinstating election-integrity policies and staffing up critical trust and safety teams to better enforce policies across languages. The letter also calls on platforms to improve transparency by enabling civil-society oversight of their enforcement practices, and to require clear disclosure of AI-generated political content while prohibiting the use of deepfakes in political ads. (Read the full list of interventions and letter signers here.) The coalition asks that companies provide substantive responses to the letter by April 22, 2024.
The city of Joplin (MO), has taken broadband competitiveness into its own hands and has wooed ALLO Fiber to build a fiber network in the city that will compete against the long-time incumbent Cable One. This is bad news for Cable One. But it could also spell bad news for cable providers all over the country. For several decades cable operators have been careful to respect each other’s footprints, rather than competing against each other in many markets. And they’ve always fought hard against municipal broadband efforts, arguing that taxpayer dollars should not be used to compete with their networks, which were built with private investments. But that way of approaching broadband may be coming to an end. This deal between Joplin and ALLO is not by definition a municipal network. The network will be funded, built and operated entirely by ALLO. The city is involved because it was fed up with what it considered sub-par internet for its residents, and it put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a fiber company to enter the market.
On battlefields from Ukraine to Sudan, Starlink provides immediate and largely secure access to the internet. Besides solving the age-old problem of effective communications between troops and their commanders, Starlink provides a way to control drones and other advanced technologies that have become a critical part of modern warfare. The proliferation of the easy-to-activate hardware has thrust SpaceX into the messy geopolitics of war. The company has the ability to limit Starlink access by “geofencing,” making the service unavailable in specific countries and locations, as well as through the power to deactivate individual devices. Russia and China don’t allow the use of Starlink technology because it could undermine state control of information, and due to general suspicions of U.S. technology. Musk has said on X that to the best of his knowledge, no terminals had been sold directly or indirectly to Russia, and that the terminals wouldn’t work inside Russia.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and Zoe Walker (zwalker AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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