Ars Technica

Dozens of state lawmakers from Massachusetts urged Comcast to halt enforcement of its 1.2TB monthly data cap, saying the cap hurts low-income people during the pandemic and is unnecessary because of Comcast's healthy network capacity. The letter to Comcast Senior VP Mark Reilly, spearheaded by MA State Reps Andy Vargas and Dave Rogers, disputed Comcast's claim that a 1.2TB cap only affects a very small subset of customers it calls "super users." The lawmakers also wrote that "Massachusetts has experienced the largest relative increase of food-insecure individuals in the nation due to COVID-

President Donald Trump has vetoed funding for the US military because the massive defense spending bill did not include a provision to repeal Section 230 which grants Internet service providers, including online platforms, broad immunity from being held legally liable for content third-party users share and grants those same services legal immunity from the decisions they make around content moderation. The National Defense Authorization Act would have authorized $740 billion in defense spending for the upcoming government fisc

Broadband and TV providers will finally be required to stop charging "rental" fees for equipment that customers own themselves, thanks to a new US law that takes effect on Dec 20. The bogus fees were outlawed by the Television Viewer Protection Act (TVPA), which was approved by Congress and signed by President Trump in December 2019.

OneWeb has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy under new ownership and says it will begin launching more broadband satellites in December 2020. Similar to SpaceX Starlink, OneWeb is building a network of low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites that can provide high-speed broadband with much lower latencies than traditional geostationary satellites. After a launch in December, launches will continue throughout 2021 and 2022, and OneWeb is now on track to begin commercial connectivity services to the UK and the Arctic region in late 2021 and will expand to delivering global services in 2022.

The number of broadband "power users"—people who use 1TB or more per month—has doubled over the past year, ensuring that broadband internet access service providers will be able to make more money from data caps. More customers exceeding their data caps will result in more overage charges paid to ISPs that impose monthly data caps. Higher usage can also boost ISP revenue because people using more data tend to subscribe to higher-speed packages.