A small coalition of internet service providers (ISP), broadband associations, and digital equity advocates is emerging to warn that a requirement for service providers to provide a letter of credit in order to participate in the federal government's Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program will "shut out a huge number of ISPs." The $42 billion BEAD program requires grant recipients to provide a letter of credit for 25% of the award, in addition to a 25% match requirement. One member of the coalition, Connect Humanity – a nonprofit working with communities to advance digital equity – argued that this requirement creates "enormous barriers to all but the best funded providers" and will shut out the types of ISPs that the Biden administration has prioritized as participants in the program. The issue, according to Connect Humanity, is the collateral required to receive a letter of credit. Providing an example, the group said that an ISP aiming to build a $10 million broadband network would need to raise over $2 million in collateral (with interest and fees), in addition to supplying matching funds, to be eligible for a $7.5 million BEAD grant. "Many simply won't apply," wrote Connect Humanity. Other members of the coalition pushing back against the letter of credit mandate include small ISPs like Arkansas-based Aristotle Unified Communications; organizations like Broadband.Money; the Schools, Health, and Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB); and the American Association for Public Broadband, led by Gigi Sohn.

As states draft their initial proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is striving to help broadband offices tackle the cybersecurity aspect of the BEAD guidelines. Essentially, states must verify the vendors and suppliers to whom they award contracts have “adequate” cybersecurity and supply chain risk management (C/SCRM) plans. As for what exactly those requirements are, TIA CEO Dave Stehlin said it’s a “very long” and complicated answer. Stehlin explained the BEAD Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) refers to four federal government documents on the subject of C/SCRM, including the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and Biden’s executive order from September 2022 on enhancing the supply chain. Each document is referred to “as being baseline requirements in BEAD.” TIA created a checklist state broadband offices can use to “operationalize these guidelines – something that you can touch and feel and measure.” States can then map those requirements to TIA’s Supply Chain Security Standard (or SCS 9001). Some of the questions on the checklist include:

• Does the organization identify cybersecurity roles and responsibilities of its workforce, including third party partners like suppliers and consultants?
• Does the organization have a Business Continuity Plan that enables the rapid recovery of normal business operations after a cyberattack or other disaster?
• Does the organization understand all legal and regulatory requirements under which it is expected to operate?

While Stehlin couldn’t say how many states have adopted the checklist, he noted TIA is dealing with “probably half of the states or more right now, at different speeds and different levels.”

E-Rate is the forgotten child of the universal service family. While commentators and Congress have spilled significant ink examining the government’s broadband build-out and affordability initiatives, E-Rate has been quietly subsidizing broadband service to schools and libraries for a quarter century. Promoting community connectivity and education is a worthwhile policy goal. But with program costs exceeding $2 billion annually, paid from an increasingly unstable Universal Service Fund (USF), it’s important to measure whether these expenditures actually improve student learning—something the Federal Communications Commission has not yet measured and which private studies doubt. At first glance, data suggest the program was a success. But as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted, “A key unanswered question. . .is the extent to which increases in connectivity can be attributed to E-rate.” Despite prompting from the Office of Management and Budget, the FCC never isolated the effect of E-Rate subsidies from other funding sources, such as state and local budget outlays. It even admitted to the GAO, “there was no way to tell whether the program has resulted in the cost-effective deployment and use of advanced telecommunications services for schools and libraries.” A comprehensive program evaluation would also seek to determine to what extent E-Rate spending merely displaces state and local spending that would occur with or without the program. Admittedly, assessing E-Rate can be a politically sensitive topic. Like Lifeline, E-Rate is a noble program with an important mandate. But that should not exempt the program from careful examination and scrutiny.

Big Tech could be fighting a losing battle with a bipartisan movement in Congress for new regulations on social media use by children, including getting kids off such platforms entirely. The Senate Commerce Committee approved two bills, the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (CTOPPA), sending them along to the full Senate for a vote. While the industry group Computer and Communications Industry Association said the bills “raise serious First Amendment concerns, would lead to broad restrictions of online speech, contain vague knowledge standards and would create confusing compliance problems for businesses’ efforts to protect young people online,” the vote to favorably report the bills to the full Senate was unanimous. Big Tech has plenty of lobbying muscle, though. The Kids Online Safety Act passed unanimously out of the committee in 2022, but failed to make it into law. 

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has been a leading voice exposing how Musk’s leadership and the changes he is making to “X” have led to a proliferation of hate speech on the platform. While Musk proclaims himself to be an advocate for free speech, his latest tactics involve making brazen verbal and legal threats against CCDH, all while allowing racist, antisemitic content to proliferate on his platform. Research by CCDH shows hate speech on the platform has proliferated under Musk, and the company is doing nothing to stop it. Musk has disclosed ad revenue is down 50% since his takeover and blamed CCDH, among others, for advertisers fleeing the platform. While Elon Musk proclaims to be a “free speech absolutist,” his actions against CCDH show the lengths he will go to silence those who seek to hold him to account.

T-Mobile will appeal several decisions made by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs to challenges brought by AT&T. The decisions involved “Phone Freedom” ads that appeared in television commercials, radio advertisements, and on T-Mobile’s website. The good news for T-Mobile is that NAD found at least one claim made in the “Phone Freedom” campaign to be supported. The bad news for T-Mobile is that some claims were not found to be supported. The campaign is focused on T-Mobile’s offer to pay off a customer’s phone contract and give a free 5G phone to customers who switch to T-Mobile’s Go5G Plan. NAD found the T-Mobile claim — “AT&T and Verizon require three-year device financing to get their best offers & you lose your promo credits if you upgrade after two years” to be supported. NAD found that several other claims were not supported. These include: “AT&T and Verizon rope you in with phone offers then bind you to a three-year device contract” and “You’re upgrade ready a year earlier.” The advertising watchdog said the claims overstate the limitations on AT&T customers’ ability to upgrade. NAD also recommended T-Mobile discontinue or modify the claim “Introducing Go5G Plus, the first plan that always gives new and existing customers the same great device deals.”