Federal

The North Star of communications policy should be to make services faster, better, and cheaper for all. Yet, next year, about 50 million Americans could find that their access to the core communications service of our time—broadband—has become slower, worse, and more expensive, with many even likely to be disconnected. That shift would constitute the biggest step any country has ever taken to widen, rather than close, its digital divide. The reason for the potential debacle?

Technological innovation often leads to organizational innovation, and organizational innovation often leads to organizational opposition. As new forms of business organizations emerge and become dominant, interest groups and others often resist the change, decrying the new models as fundamentally negative. The reality of economic history is these new business models have been enormously positive. The world would be a vastly poorer place without the rise of the industrial organization, then the multidivisional corporation and now the Internet-based platform.

Cal.net, a service provider focused on offering fixed wireless access (FWA) and fiber broadband to California’s Central Valley and rural northern California, has a new CEO and new funding.

Consolidated Communications now offers 2 Gbps symmetrical service to more than 3,000 homes and small businesses in parts of rural Maine. The deployment was funded, in part, through money awarded to the company and to the Maine Connectivity Authority. The funding came through the Broadband Infrastructure Program administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

The Maryland Congressional Delegation sent a letter urging the Federal Communications Commission to update and improve Maryland’s broadband mapping data based on the state's Office of Statewide Broadband’s comments on the National Broadband Map. The Office of Statewide Broadband (OSB) found approximately 3,800 addresses incorrectly identified as serviceable by internet service providers (ISPs) compared to the state’s information on unserved locations. The OSB submitted feedback as part of the challenge process to improve the accuracy of the FCC’s service availability data.

Today marks the second anniversary of the American Rescue Plan Act. Funding from the law provided over $25 billion to jumpstart universal broadband access—including broadband connections for 16 million students through the Emergency Connectivity Fund for schools and libraries to close the homework gap.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared with her colleagues a Report and Order proposing a second, more targeted Notice of Funding Opportunity to raise awareness and promote the Affordable Connectivity Program as part of the FCC’s broader consumer outreach efforts. The proposal is part of a reinvigorated campaign to enroll more eligible households and families in the nation’s largest broadband affordability program.

Tonya Felsinger spent more than half her life working in the food service industry. She obtained her GED a few years ago, and her GED teacher and an administrator at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology (OSUIT) encouraged her to try the school’s new fiber technician training course.

How much impact will the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program—and the connectivity it brings—have on the poorest, most underserved pockets of the country? “Broadband deployment in this country has been market-driven, with private sector telephone and cable companies investing in areas that provide higher rates of return,” said Kathryn de Wit, Project Director for the Broadband Access Initiative with the Pew Charitable Trusts. “Profit and return are important to the long-term operation of networks, even for ISPs receiving government subsidies.

The US Department of Agriculture’s Broadband ReConnect Program already got a $2 billion boost from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but President Joe Biden is looking to bolster the loan and grant initiative with a fresh batch of funding. In a budget proposal covering fiscal year 2024, President Biden called for an additional $400 million to be allocated to the program to help deploy broadband in unserved areas. “Installing high-speed internet creates high-paying union jobs and strengthens rural