Federal Communications Commission

It turns out there are two digital divides in America. The first one is the familiar divide between those who have Internet subscriptions and those who don’t. Everyone agrees this is a persistent concern, with about 10 percent of the public lacking subscriptions at the last count.

The Virginia Office of Broadband submitted a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission, pointing to a significant number of locations in Virginia that are currently incorrectly reported on the most recent FCC broadband coverage map. In partnership with Virginia Tech, the Virginia Office of Broadband found that there are approximately 358,000 locations in Virginia that are reported on the new map as being served when, in fact, they currently lack access to broadband.

Fitting the monthly cost of a broadband subscription into a low-income household budget is difficult, to say the least, because of the costs of competing necessities like lodging, food, and healthcare. These financial pressures—and unexpected expenses—keep too many people in the U.S. from subscribing to home broadband service—or cause them to drop service at times to make ends meet. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress recognized these obstacles for low-income people and created a program—first called the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program—to reduce the monthly costs of connectivity.

Reducing the broadband affordability gap is an important and noble goal. Unfortunately, it is far from clear whether Lifeline, the federal program tasked with getting low-income households online, actually addresses this problem. For over a decade, academics, government watchdogs, and independent auditors have criticized the Federal Communications Commission’s inability or unwillingness to measure the program’s effectiveness—while private studies suggest much of this spending may be misdirected toward families at no risk of losing internet access.

Federal Communications Commissioner Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said that using the E-rate program to subsidize mobile hotspot devices is a “great idea” and that there may be some activity on that front in the future. The chairwoman was fielding a comment from a mayor of a Texas city, who said that his jurisdiction has a program that lends out connectivity hubs – allowing others to connect to the device – in parts of the town for residents seeking internet. He asked whether that’s something that the FCC could fund.

Big kudos to the Federal Communications Commission for the release of its Communications Marketplace Report at the end of 2022. This is the first Communications Marketplace Report released under FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s leadership, so none of us should be surprised that there are vast improvements in the information covered.

Whether or not the US closes its digital divide may come down to the fate of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP): the $14.25 billion program currently subsidizing broadband by $30/month for over 15.7 million households (up to $75 on tribal lands). That's the view of the National Urban League (NUL).

Broadband operators, including those represented by ACA Connects and NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, have asked the Federal Communications Commission to either clarify or reconsider two requirements in rules implementing consumer broadband labels that they say may not pass legal muster otherwise. Congress mandated the labels so consumers can better gauge just what kind of broadband service they are getting, including price, speed, and quality. In a joint petition for clarification or reconsideration filed with the FCC, the associations said they generally support the adoptio

So often when we think about 5G in the United States we talk about our phones. But if we do this right, our phones will be the least interesting thing about our 5G future. This is not about the small icon that appears—and sometimes disappears—in the upper right-hand corner of a mobile device. It is a whole lot bigger than that. We are talking about using 5G technology to lay the foundation for digital transformation around the globe. Because we are fast heading to a world where next-generation wireless networks connect everyone and everything around us.

In this Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL), the Federal Communications Commission proposes a penalty of $62,000,000 against Q Link Wireless for apparently violating provisions of the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act and FCC rules and orders governing the reimbursements it claimed for providing Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) Program customers with internet-connected devices between December 2021 and March 2022. Because of these apparent violations, which involved overclaiming support for hundreds of thousands of computer tablets, Q Link apparently obtained at least $20,792,800 in impr