High-speed internet access is crucial for economic opportunity and social participation. However, broadband policies have not kept pace with dramatic changes in technology and markets. The administration should: 

• Adopt Technology-Neutral Policies: Adopt technology-neutral policies that recognize that costs vary by technology and context, moving beyond outdated concepts of "high-cost areas."
• Consider Competition Holistically: Evaluate market competition across all available broadband technologies including fiber, cable, fixed wireless, 5G, and satellite services, rather than focusing on individual technologies in isolation.
• Promote Market Competition Over Price Regulation: Rely on market competition to discipline prices rather than implementing direct price controls. Address affordability challenges through targeted low-income support programs rather than broad price regulation that can discourage investment and innovation.
• Set Subsidies on Demand and Cost: Set explicit per-location funding limits considering consumer demand, deployment speed, and alternative technologies like LEO satellites.
• Restore Program Focus: Return broadband programs to their core mission of expanding connectivity. Recent programs have added numerous unrelated requirements that increase costs and complexity while reducing effectiveness.
• Reform Low-Income Support: Provide technology-neutral vouchers while preventing providers from identifying recipients to avoid price discrimination.
• Modernize Spectrum Allocation: Develop new market-based mechanisms to determine use patterns (e.g., licensed, unlicensed, shared, etc.) based on revealed valuations rather than technical claims and lobbying. Ensure all users, including government agencies, face opportunity costs of spectrum use.
• Require Rigorous Evaluation: Build evaluation into every program focused on measuring outcomes achieved relative to costs, not just compliance. 

Local government officials are often taken in by the allure of government-owned broadband networks (GONs) when told by activists or consultants that they are superior to relying on private providers. While a GON could be the least bad option if no private providers are willing to invest, build, and operate, GONs are typically a suboptimal choice. Comparisons between GONs and private Internet service providers (ISPs) are often asymmetric—overlooking favoritism toward GONs and hostility to private deployment. From a policy perspective, such a skewed comparison is unhelpful in finding the best way to connect consumers and efficiently use national resources. Instead, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) under President-elect Trump should push policymakers to conduct an unbiased evaluation of the relative merits of both options. 

In a November 26 letter to Members of Congress, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel offered an update on the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, emphasizing the need for full funding of the program. The consequences of the continued lack of full funding for the Reimbursement Program are significant for our national security and rural communities ... In light of these concerns, and the need to ensure that our Nation’s communications networks are free of this vulnerable and insecure equipment, the Commission stands ready to assist Congress in efforts to fully fund the Reimbursement Program.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appointed twenty-one Tribal members and five FCC members to the FCC’s renewed Native Nations Communications Task Force. The Task Force is comprised of elected and appointed leaders, or their designees, from a broad cross section of Native Nations, as well as senior staff and decision-makers from across the FCC.  Chairwoman Rosenworcel named Bambi Kraus, Chief of the FCC’s Office of Native Affairs and Policy, as Task Force Co-Chair.  A Tribal Co-Chair will be elected by the Tribal members of the Task Force. The Task Force will help the FCC fulfill its commitment to increase access to broadband and other communications infrastructure deployment and services on Tribal lands. The Task Force’s mission is to provide guidance, expertise, and recommendations to specific requests from the FCC on a range of telecommunications issues that directly or indirectly affect Tribal governments and their people. 

Tribal Task Force members are: Tiffany Circle, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation Washington Sam Cohen, Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation Fred Corey, Mi'kmaq Nation Guthrie Ducheneaux, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Lee Fine, Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana Melissa Francis, Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point Anthony Giacobbe, Seneca Nation Sharon Hildebrand, Tanana Chiefs Conference Donald Long Knife, Fort Belknap Indian Community Marissa Merculieff, Aleut Community of St. Paul (ASCPI) Will Micklin, Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay Indians Allyson Mitchell, St. Regis Mohawk Tribe Jason Neilitz, Sokaogon Chippewa Community Robert Pollard, Blue Lake Rancheria Kevin Shendo, Pueblo of Jemez Josh Snow, Chickasaw Nation Paula Starr, Cherokee Nation Teresa Taylor, Lummi Nation Sherry Treppa, Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake Tribe Jonathan Walters, Samish Indian Nation Jason Williams, Chugachmiut.

FCC members are: Allison Baker, Associate Bureau Chief, Wireline Competition Bureau; David Furth, Deputy Bureau Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau; Bambi Kraus, Chief, Office of Native Affairs and Policy, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, and FCC NNCTF Co-Chair; Janet Moran, Associate Division Chief, Competition and Infrastructure Policy Division, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau; and Lisa Scanlan, Deputy Division Chief, Audio Division, Media Bureau.