Federal Agency

Samuel Levine, director of the Federal Trade Commission's bureau of consumer protection, said the agency won't hesitate to sue companies that play fast and loose with customers' data.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act, which would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue a rule requiring all commercial pornographic websites to adopt age verification technology to ensure children cannot access pornographic content. Specifically, the SCREEN Act:

Technical assistance for broadband expansion in Alabama is the focus of a series of meetings in the state. The Alabama Community Broadband Technical Assistance program kicked off recently and will be offered in each of the state’s 67 counties. The program works to provide technical assistance to municipalities and other public stakeholders in the state who are working to ensure broadband is accessible to everyone.

The Federal Communications Commission has received several petitions and requests from E-Rate stakeholders through the annual E-Rate eligible services list (ESL) proceedings, asking that the FCC permit the use of E-Rate program funds to support advanced or next-generation firewalls and services, as well as other network security services. The FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau seeks comment on these petitions as well as the related funding year 2023 ESL proceeding filings.

The Lifeline program and the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) serve a vital role in providing low-income Americans with affordable access to essential communication services. Between November 21 and December 8, 2022, the National Lifeline Association (NaLA) surveyed more than 60,000 customers who use the Lifeline and/or ACP program about who they are and how they use the programs. Survey results indicate that low-income consumers use Lifeline and/or ACP service to connect to family and to access other government programs, healthcare, jobs and online education.

With a big push nationwide to get customers enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), most broadband providers seem to have forgotten about the Federal Communications Commission's Lifeline program that can provide a monthly discount of $9.25 off a telephone or broadband bill for qualifying customers. Customers can qualify for both the ACP discount and Lifeline, meaning an ISP can collect a total subsidy of $39.25 for a qualifying customer. Any ISP that is participating in ACP in order to reach low-income households should consider the Lifeline discount as well.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded nine grants as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP). These new grants, totaling more than $40.3 million, bring the total of the program to nearly $1.7 billion awarded to 130 Tribal entities.

In 2012, Governor John Hickenlooper (D-CO) charged the Colorado Office of Information Technology (OIT) with overseeing and coordinating broadband activity across state agencies. In 2016, OIT created the Colorado Broadband Office.

When the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband maps came out, we were quick to compare the number of unserved locations in the new maps to the number of unserved housing units in the previous Form 477 data. As expected, the number of unserved locations doubled, from 3.6 million to 7.8 million. But that comparison isn’t apples-to-apples.

Back in 1996, Congress amended the Communications Act to include antidiscrimination as part of American telecommunications policy.