Internet/Broadband

I am ordering additional actions to improve our Nation’s cybersecurity, focusing on defending our digital infrastructure, securing the services and capabilities most vital to the digital domain, and building our capability to address key threats, including those from the People’s Republic of China.  Improving accountability for software and cloud service providers, strengthening the security of Federal communications and identity management systems, and promoting innovative developments and the use of emerging technologies for cybersecurity across executive departments and agencies (agencie

Following recent reports involving an intrusion by foreign actors into U.S.

The Federal Communications Commission selected 707 participants for the Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program, including 645 schools and districts, 50 libraries, and 12 consortia. Participants in the three-year pilot program will receive support to defray the costs of eligible cybersecurity services and equipment and provide the FCC with data to better understand whether and how universal service funds could be used to improve school and library defenses against increasing cyberattacks.

The Federal Trade Commission finalized changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule to set new requirements around the collection, use and disclosure of children’s personal information and give parents new tools and protections to help them control what data is provided to third parties about their children. The final rule requires parents to opt in to third-party advertising and includes other changes to address the emerging ways that consumers’ data is collected and used by companies, and particularly how children’s data is being shared and monetized.

On January 13, 2025, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced its approval of Louisiana’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Final Proposal. Delaware’s approval followed the next day. With those two landmarks, coming as the fourth year since the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) begins to elapse, the BEAD program is at last beginning to bear fruit.

The fifth installment of USTelecom’s Broadband Pricing Index (BPI) shows that prices for high-speed broadband internet services continue to decline— even as upload and download speeds rapidly advance. Thanks to the world-leading pace of broadband infrastructure investment by the U.S. private sector1 and an intensive focus on fiber deployments, consumers have never had a stronger value proposition for their connectivity dollar. Key findings from the report include: 

In late 2023, the Department of Commerce’s Commerce Data Governance Board launched the AI and Open Government Data Working Group. The working group, consisting of AI and data experts throughout the Department of Commerce (Commerce), was tasked with evaluating how the Department could enhance the creation, curation, and distribution of its open data assets to best meet the needs of users who leverage generative AI applications to interact with Commerce’s open data. This guidance provides actionable guidelines and best practices for publishing open data optimized for generative AI systems.

AT&T has made it official that it plans to shut down copper networks everywhere except California by the end of 2029. This is not exactly news since the company has been quietly shutting down copper all over the country. California is a special situation because the California Public Service Commission has never deregulated AT&T as a local telephone company and the state is going to make AT&T prove to it that customers will not be stranded when the copper comes down. AT&T says it will offer an alternate technology to customers—either fiber or wireless.

A look at the impacts of universal service support mechanisms and the method used to finance them. Section 1 of the report provides an update on industry revenues, universal service program funding requirements, and contribution factors. Sections 2 through 5 provide the latest data on the low-income, high-cost, schools and libraries, and rural health care support mechanisms. Section 6 presents recent U.S.

President Joe Biden used his final address from the Oval Office to deliver a somber warning about the threat posed by the “dangerous concentration of power” in the hands of wealthy and well-connected individuals, a thinly veiled reference to billionaire technology executives who have been increasingly signaling their desire to work closely with President-elect Donald Trump. “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” President B