A framework for Build America, Buy America (BABA) self-certification and compliance in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program:

1. Self-Certification: Manufacturers, at the risk of federal penalty, can choose to certify that certain equipment they produce meets the domestic manufacturing requirements described in the BEAD BABA waiver. The Department of Commerce (DOC) will host a BEAD BABA Self-Certification page listing manufacturers that have completed the certification process. Instructions for how to add your company’s BABA-compliant equipment to the list can be found under the “Approved Waiver” section on the DOC BABA page.

• Manufacturers are not required to self-certify. The Self-Certification list is a voluntary mechanism to limit fraudulent claims of BABA compliance.
• In the coming weeks, NTIA will release the first version of the Self-Certification list. This list will be updated on a regular basis.

2. Compliance:

• Manufacturer’s BABA certification letter: Manufacturers are required to provide a BABA certification letter to a subgrantee for equipment that requires domestic production in the BEAD BABA waiver. Subgrantees are required to maintain this certification letter in the event of an audit. More information about the manufacturer certification letter can be found at the BBUSA BABA Compliance and Self Certification page.
• Waiver Reporting: Subgrantees will be required to report certain information on finished waived electronics used in BEAD deployments. This information will be used to better understand the electronics used in domestic broadband deployments, including the specific types of equipment, their ubiquity, and their country of origin.
  
  • Information on the specific reporting requirements that NTIA will require subgrantees to track for finished waived electronics can be found at the BBUSA BABA Compliance and Self Certification page.

The death of the US government's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is starting to result in disconnection of Internet service for Americans with low incomes. Charter Communications reported a net loss of 154,000 Internet subscribers that it said was mostly driven by customers canceling after losing the federal discount. About 100,000 of those subscribers were reportedly getting the discount, which in some cases made Internet service free to the consumer. Charter's Q2 2024 earnings report provides some of the first evidence of users dropping Internet service after losing the discount. Separately, the FCC Lifeline program that provides $9.25 monthly discounts is in jeopardy after a court ruling. Lifeline is paid for by the Universal Service Fund, which was the subject of a constitutional challenge.

Sens John Thune (R-SD), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and John Barrasso (R-WY) introduced the Accelerating Broadband Permits Act, bipartisan legislation that would improve federal agencies’ review and processing of broadband permits and allow service to be more quickly deployed to unserved communities. The legislation cuts unnecessary red tape, increases transparency into the federal permitting process, and requires all federal agencies to implement controls to ensure broadband applications are being processed within the required 270-day deadline. In April 2024, the Government Accountability Office reported significant issues with federal agencies processing broadband applications within the 270-day deadline. Following that report, Sens Thune and Barrasso urged the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service to fix the broken permitting process for broadband infrastructure on federal lands.

Middle-mile may have become more important than ever in terms of fiber networks because all the last-mile networks that will be built for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program need to connect to something. But honing-in on a precise definition of middle-mile is a challenge even for industry insiders. Joe Pellegrini, president and COO with Great Plains Communications, said, “It’s an end-to-end system with real estate, points of presence…. There’s the power requirements, generators.” Pellegrini said Great Plains wants to monetize its 19,000 route miles of fiber any way it can. That can include fiber-to-the-home, fiber-to-the-cell-tower and fiber to enterprises and data centers. Pellegrini said there’s a lot of opportunity with tower companies in rural areas because they’re trying to remove their legacy microwave backhaul and replace it with fiber.

We should not take our foot off the gas when it comes to the importance of better mapping, considering it’s at the heart of so much in the rural broadband space. Congress charged the Federal Communications Commission in early 2020 with creating a national broadband availability map. It is only fair to say that the national broadband map is better than any broadband availability dataset before it, and that it keeps getting better. But we are in no position to declare “mission accomplished” or even “good enough” when it comes to the national broadband map. NTCA recently visited the Federal Communications Commission to highlight flaws in the map and make suggestions for how to address them. The suggestions include: 

• Adopt objective Broadband Data Collection (BDC) reporting standards that reflect a network’s proven technological capabilities, so that an ISP’s website advertising isn’t the final arbiter of what is and isn’t available;
• Create public “heat maps” to highlight where numerous challenges and crowdsourcing concerns arise in an area;
• Enable greater use of performance/speed test data to inform challenges and adopt other reforms to the challenge processes;
• Apply meaningful consequences for chronic overreporting of availability, as compared to the “no harm, no foul—just file better next time” regime that applies today; and
• Do not reduce or eliminate broadband funding for an entire area based upon coverage claims unless objective technical standards confirm that a provider realistically could serve every customer in that area.

Phenomenal cosmic power—that’s what it’ll take to support the data center demand of the future thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and its required compute power. There’s only one problem, according to Brian Janous, cofounder of data center siting startup Cloverleaf Infrastructure: not many folks in the industry have a good understanding of the challenges and limitations energy utility companies face when it comes to powering data centers. His company, though, is aiming to change that. Janous said that the data center industry has historically been focused on an understanding of fiber, since that’s what was driving site development a decade ago. But over the last years and a half, there’s been an awakening of sorts. “Electricity is the constraint. It’s not fiber, and it’s not land. It’s how you solve the electric grid because the demand for computation and the demand for GPUs is clearly outpacing the speed at which utilities can make investments in their system.”

The internet was spewing racist and sexist attacks long before Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) began her presidential campaign, including when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sought the job. Since the last major election, however, it has become even more noxious—and more central to American politics. In 2008, then-Sen Obama (D-IL) Obama faced an ecosystem in which Facebook had millions of users, not billions, and the iPhone was just a year old. In 2016, Clinton’s campaign monitored a handful of social media platforms, not dozens. In 2020, when then-Sen Harris was Joseph Biden Jr.’s running mate, it was far harder to use artificial intelligence to produce the fake pornographic renderings and misleading videos that now claim to portray her. False narratives and conspiracy theories about her have ricocheted across the digital landscape. Much has changed in the lead-up to 2024. Such claims are now turbocharged, fueled by an increasingly aggressive tone of political speech endorsed by top politicians, powered by artificial intelligence and other new technologies, and let loose across a far more fragmented online landscape crowded with unmoderated platforms.

Seven recommendations to allow the Department of Commerce to assist the next President in implementing a bold agenda to deliver economic prosperity and strong national security, including: 

1. Support free speech and hold Big Tech accountable. Immediately conduct a thorough review of federal policy regarding free speech online and provide policy solutions to address Big Tech’s censorship of speech.
2. Expand utilization of federal spectrum. Begin short-term, temporary leasing of government-allocated spectrum to ensure optimum utilization while preserving federal agency use rights.
3. Defend U.S. interests in international bodies. Strong representation at the International Telecommunication Union should protect the interests of both private and government users of spectrum. The U.S. has differing needs from many other countries, for instance, because of U.S. government satellites and the commercial space industry. NTIA should work with the U.S. delegation to ensure maximum adoption of the U.S. position.
4. Review FirstNet. Evaluate the performance and long-term value proposition of FirstNet in view of modern technologies that will render it obsolete.
5. Set fresh priorities in broadband grant programs. Reevaluate broadband grant programs and, when possible, establish Administration priorities in how each grant is structured. First and foremost, widespread deployment of infrastructure is needed for 5G adoption in rural and exurban areas, which will be a key factor in future economic competitiveness for these underserved communities.

The Senate passed bipartisan legislation to impose sweeping safety and privacy requirements for children and teens on social media and other technology platforms, voting overwhelmingly to send the measure to the House, where its fate was uncertain. Passage of the measure, which has been the subject of a dogged advocacy campaign by parents who say their children lost their lives because of something they found or saw on social media, marked a rare bipartisan achievement at a time of deep polarization in Congress. Despite the lopsided support among Republicans and Democrats, the package faces a fierce lobbying effort by technology companies that are resisting new regulation, and deep skepticism among free speech advocates who argue that it would chill individual expression and potentially harm some of those whom the bill aims to protect. The vote was 91 to 3 to approve the measure, sending it to the House, which is in a summer recess until September. The legislation is the product of years of work by lawmakers and parents to overhaul digital privacy and safety laws as social networking sites, digital gaming and other online platforms increasingly dominate children’s and teens’ lives. The centerpiece of the legislation would create a “duty of care” for social networking platforms that mandates they protect minors against mental health disorders and from abuse, sexual exploitation and other harms. Companies could be held liable for failing to filter out content or limit features that could lead to those adverse impacts. The legislation also would require technology service providers to turn on the highest privacy and safety settings by default for users under 17 and to allow youths to opt out of some features that can lead to compulsive use, such as auto-playing of videos. A second measure included in the package would strengthen privacy protections for anyone under 17 and ban targeted advertising to children and teens. It would create an “eraser button” for parents and children, requiring companies to permit users to delete personal information.