Federal

A federal program that provides $30 monthly broadband discounts to people with low incomes is expected to run out of money in April 2024, potentially taking affordable Internet service plans away from well over 20 million households. For months, supporters of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) have been pushing Congress to give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) more funding for the program.

Representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY) hinted that she will introduce new legislation before the end of 2023 to address a significant funding gap for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). The ACP, which offers free or discounted high-speed internet to qualifying households, is expected to run out of money in April of 2024.

The Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Data Task Force, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, the Wireline Competition Bureau, and the Office of Economics and Analytics responded to a Petition for Extension of Waiver filed by the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) and USTelecom – The Broadband Association (USTelecom).

Bringing broadband to under-served parts of rural America is one element of a giant infrastructure program that began in 2021 when President Joe Biden signed it into law. It was hailed as a historic opportunity to repair America’s bridges, rebuild its roads for electric vehicles and update its power grid and communications technology. However, instead of the anticipated surge, total infrastructure spending has fallen by more than 10% in real terms since the passage of the law. The most charitable explanation is that it takes time for big projects to get going.

In the year since the release of ChatGPT, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been moving fast and breaking things, and copyright law is only beginning to catch up. Intellectual property law has shaped the internet for three decades.

Representatives Andrea Salinas (D-OR) and Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) introduced the bipartisan Home-Based Telemental Health Care Act, legislation that would expand access to remote mental health and substance use services in rural America, especially for individuals working in the farming, fishing, and forestry industries.

The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing that included testimony from each of the five (yes, there are five now) FCC commissioners. A partisan tone was set by the get-go as the title for the hearing was "Oversight of President Biden's Broadband Takeover." The key questions for the Republican Members of the panel going into the hearing were:

The US federal government has stopped warning some social networks about foreign disinformation campaigns on their platforms, reversing a years-long approach to preventing Russia and other actors from interfering in American politics less than a year before the US presidential elections. Meta no longer receives notifications of global influence campaigns from the Biden administration, halting a prolonged partnership between the federal government and the world’s largest social media company.

Verizon’s TracFone Wireless subsidiary reached a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Enforcement Bureau to resolve an investigation into whether the company violated the agency’s Lifeline and Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program rules.  According to the FCC, TracFone’s internal systems: 1) improperly considered a subscriber’s receipt of an inbound text message to constitute qualifying Lifeline usage and 2) improperly claimed support for a group of customers who were enrolled jointly in both the Lifeline and EBB programs, but did not use one of the services in

Roughly one in seven Americans have come to rely on the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) since it was created almost exactly two years ago by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). As of November 1, 2023, the ACP had roughly $4.7 billion in remaining funds. If the current rate of program uptake continues, April 2024 will be the last full month of funding for the ACP. To avoid this problem, the White House recently asked Congress for an additional $6 billion for the ACP in order to extend the program, and give Congress and the Federal Communicat