Internet/Broadband

The Federal Communications Commission takes emergency action to ensure continuity of Lifeline service for the Lifeline households formerly served by Q Link Wireless LLC prior to its suspension. The FCC finds good cause exists to temporarily waive certain Lifeline requirements to prevent disruption to certain Lifeline subscribers’ service in the wake of Q Link’s suspension from the Lifeline program.

Any time there is a change of administration at the White House the Federal Communications Commission gets a new Chairman and a new agenda—and we now know the new Chairman will be current Commissioner Brandon Carr. With a new Chairman comes new policies, but also a turn against some of the policies of the previous FCC. There are a few things that obviously get reversed. First is net neutrality, which is poorly named and is really an effort to put some regulatory oversight on broadband. It seems likely that Commissioner Carr will reverse Chairman Rosenworcel’s decision on discrimination.

Leaders of the top telecommunications companies were summoned to the White House to discuss a security problem that has been roiling the government: how to expel Chinese hackers from the deepest corners of the nation’s communications networks.

The Supreme Court, which dealt a major blow to the power of federal agencies in June, agreed to consider another: whether Congress violates the Constitution by delegating broad discretion to them. The so-called nondelegation doctrine has been largely dormant since 1935, when the Supreme Court struck down New Deal laws for granting too much leeway to agencies with insufficient guidance.

We are grateful that the Supreme Court has granted certiorari and will review the Fifth Circuit’s finding that the universal service contribution mechanism is unconstitutional as currently structured.

I am pleased that the Supreme Court will review the Fifth Circuit’s misguided decision. For decades, there has been broad, bipartisan support for the Universal Service Fund and the FCC programs that help communications reach the most rural and least-connected households in the United States, as well as hospitals, schools, and libraries nationwide. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will overturn the decision that put this vital system at risk.

Shopping for home internet just got a little easier. In April, the Federal Communications Commission launched an initiative to simplify internet shopping.

The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Meta’s Facebook, allowing to go forward a lawsuit brought by investors who claim they were misled by the social media giant about risks from a massive data breach. The justices wrote in a unanimous, one-line opinion that the case was “improvidently granted,” meaning the court should not have taken it in the first place.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a rule to supervise the largest nonbank companies offering digital funds transfer and payment wallet apps. The rule will help the CFPB to ensure that these companies—specifically those handling more than 50 million transactions per year—follow federal law just like large banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions already supervised by the CFPB.