Federal

The Federal Communications Commission seeks comment on its expanded authority over incarcerated people’s communications services, as outlined in the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2022. The new law gives the FCC authority to combat unjust and unreasonable rates and charges for voice and video calls, including calls within a state’s borders, where previously the agency had rate-making authority only over voice calls between states and foreign locations.

A Q&A with Dina Srinivasan, who, in February 2019 as an independent scholar, published an academic paper entitled ‘The Antitrust Case Against Facebook’, in which she identified a correlation between privacy and economics — and argued that the social media giant lowered its privacy standards as soon as it had defeated its rivals.

The Federal Communications Commission has directed the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to offer an additional funding opportunity of up to $10 million for the National Competitive Outreach Grant Program (NCOP) and the Tribal Competitive Outreach Grant Program (TCOP), which are components of the Affordable Connectivity Outreach Grant Program. This maximum of $10 million will come from a combination of: (a) unspent funding – funding previously allocated to the Outreach Grant Program but not awarded; and (b) unobligated funding – funding from the $100 million Affordable Connectivity P

This is a moment steeped in optimism about our connected future. There are many opportunities to join forces—across government, industry and community organizations. Collectively, we can get big things done. Our current project is to achieve connectivity for all. And, according to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act timeline, if we all hit of our marks, that goal could be achieved by the end of this decade. The question I’d like to pose is this: We have always seen universal connectivity as the end goal.

The Federal Communications Commission is targeting approximately $7.445 million for two additional one-year, pilot outreach grant programs to raise awareness of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). The two pilot programs will test a variety of methods to reach out to federal housing communities, and work with trusted third parties to assist consumers with completing and submitting an ACP application. The FCC selected 23 applicants for the Your Home, Your Internet Program and 9 applicants for the ACP Navigator Pilot Program.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) seeks comment on identifying airwaves for more intensive use and innovative new uses by both the private sector and federal agencies. NTIA seeks input on creating a spectrum pipeline for the next decade of frequencies that could be studied for new or additional uses. The agency’s goal is to identify at least 1,500 megahertz of spectrum to study for potential repurposing—perhaps the most ambitious study goal for NTIA to date—to meet future requirements for non-federal and federal users.

The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government-watchdog group, called on the Office of Government Ethics, the federal agency that oversees ethics rules, to investigate whether the Federal Communications Commission complied with financial-conflict rules when it permitted several top officials to own stocks in apparent violation of the agency’s own rules. The Campaign Legal Center said FCC officials owned stocks in cable

Nextlink is almost 2 years ahead of schedule in its Federal Communications Commission's Connect America Fund II (CAF II) broadband network construction. Nextlink was supposed to be 40% complete with its $281 million CAF II program construction but has in fact built 70% of its required locations across six states.

In a letter to the leaders of the Congressional Committees on Agriculture, a coalition of partners in rural development, education and communications urged Congress to "aim for levels of connectivity in USDA programs that will meet the needs of rural Americans not just today but well into the future." They wrote, "we encourage you to continue to put the interests of rural communities first by codifying in the Farm Bill a minimum service level commitment of 100 Mbps symmetrical broadband service – the level specified in the oversubscribed third round of ReConnect – for any applicant seeking

The Federal Communications Commission has big plans for that future. Because a few months ago, I announced a shake-up at the Federal Communications Commission. I shared my plans to reorganize the agency to create a new Space Bureau. This effort is part of what I believe needs to be a broader rethinking of satellite policy in the United States. There are now new technologies in the space industry, thousands of satellite applications pending before the agency, and so many more innovations on the horizon that I believe we cannot keep doing things the old way and expect to thrive in the new.