A recent federal court ruling is unlikely to mean the permanent end of the E-rate program that funds school telecommunication services, but the program's future is still uncertain. On a recent webinar, attorneys Sean Lev and Andy Schwartzman emphasized the recent ruling will have no near-term effects on E-rate. However, it does create uncertainty about the funding source for the program in the future. The case against the Federal Communications Commission was spearheaded by conservative non-profit Consumers’ Research. Prior to the Fifth Circuit decision, Consumers’ Research brought the same case to two other circuit courts, both of which ruled in favor of the FCC, maintaining that the funding mechanism for Universal Service Fund is constitutional. “The distribution of the money and the existing programs are reasonably well accepted and reasonably popular, and I don’t think that there will be major, major changes in any kind of legislation or what the FCC does as to how those programs operate going forward,” Schwartzman said. “I would assume E-rate will be alive and well for a long time to come one way or another.”

With Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program funding, the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA) will deploy broadband infrastructure to un-connected, unserved, underserved, and community anchor institution (CAI) locations throughout the state. Maine’s long-term broadband deployment goals are established by statute and include: "Secure, affordable, reliable, competitive and sustainable forward-looking advanced communications technology infrastructure that can meet current and future needs." Cost is a significant barrier to broadband adoption for many Mainers. Users often have difficulty navigating available service options and prices to ensure they get what they need for an affordable price. Forty-seven percent of the Maine Broadband Survey respondents have at least some difficulty paying for their internet service. BEAD-funded infrastructure deployment and the subgrantee selection process will be vital in achieving greater affordability for all Maine people, especially the most vulnerable. The application requirements will work in concert with the initiatives in the state’s Digital Equity Plan and requirements in existing infrastructure programming to accomplish the state's goals.

Maryland has named the senior leadership team for its Digital Service, an IT department division that launched in January. The Digital Service aims to improve residents’ access to digital services and benefits, lower the costs of providing these services and help state agencies offer “well-designed and user-centered digital experiences.” Rather than rely on vendors or contractors for this work, the state chose to make the Digital Service an in-house team of full-time employees. Their skill sets span engineering, design, product, web experience and strategic investments. Department of Information Technology Chief Digital Experience Officer Marcy Jacobs will helm the Digital Service. His new leadership team includes David Holmes, who will serve as the team’s senior director of engineering, Lilly Madigan, who now becomes the senior director of user experience and service design, and new Senior Director of Web Experience Jeffrey Pass. Rounding out the team are senior director of product and platforms Henry Hall and senior director of strategic investments Jenny Smith.

We’re finally seeing many consumer-friendly initiatives from the Biden administration coming to fruition. The White House recently announced a Time is Money initiative that would require corporations to implement customer-friendly practices to eliminate long hold times and excessive paperwork for customers. This is a follow-up to a proposed rule from the Federal Trade Commission in March that would require companies to make it as easy to cancel service as it is to subscribe. These are parts of a larger effort to force large companies to treat customers better. I am sure there are those that who will say that the government shouldn’t be meddling in how companies treat their customers. However, that is one of the basic role for regulators. Regulators are supposed to balance the need of consumers with the needs of the companies they regulate.

The Washington Post recently published its first-ever story built on the work of a new AI tool called Haystacker that allows journalists to sift through large data sets—video, photo or text—to find newsworthy trends or patterns. The Post's chief technology officer, Vineet Khosla, said the company is committed to building many AI tools in house because they can address the specific needs of trained journalists. That ethos is reminiscent of the Post's efforts to build an in-house content management system nearly a decade ago called ArcXP that serves the special needs of news publishers. Asked whether the Post would ever license Haystacker to other newsrooms, Khosla said that's not the company's focus right now. This is the third major AI tool the Post has debuted in the past few months. In July it launched an AI-driven chatbot on its site that responds to user queries about climate with answers pulled from Post articles. It also debuted a new article summary product that summarizes a given article using generative AI.