Internet/Broadband

Elon Musk, named by Donald Trump to co-lead a commission aimed at reducing the size of the federal government, is poised to undermine funding for rural broadband services to benefit his satellite internet services company, Starlink. Musk has long been a critic of the Biden administration’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (Bead) Program, which provides $42.45bn through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to expand high-speed internet access in rural communities.

This annual publication looks at what people in the UK are doing online, how they are served by online content providers and platforms, and their attitudes to and experiences of using the internet. In May 2024, UK adults spent an average of 4 hours 20 minutes a day online, across smartphones, tablets and computers.  Almost half (48%) of the time UK adults spend online is on services owned by Alphabet or Meta. Reddit was the fastest-growing large social media platform in the UK, reaching more than half of UK online adults by June 2024. Eighteen to 24-year-old TikTok and Snapchat visitors spe

Australia’s social media ban for children under the age of 16 will become law after passing the Senate, the upper house of Parliament, even as questions linger over how the new restrictions will be implemented. Under the new laws, which are scheduled to come into effect in about one year, children in Australia under the age of 16 will be banned from setting up accounts on popular social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau announced that certain Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) census block groups (CBG) are now eligible for other funding programs.

President-elect Trump indicates that he would like to exercise more control over the Federal Communications Commission and questions the constitutionality of independent agencies, generally. He has expressed a desire to end the independence of agencies such as the FCC and Federal Trade Commission.

Real property, equipment, and intangible property, that are acquired or improved with a Federal award must be held in trust by the non-Federal entity as trustee for the beneficiaries of the project or program under which the property was acquired or improved. This trust relationship exists throughout the duration of the property’s estimated useful life, as determined by the Grants Officer in consultation with the Program Office, during which time the Federal Government retains an undivided, equitable reversionary interest in the property.

States are itching for action on broadband access. But as they wait for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment money to flow—and policy changes under Trump—New Mexico wants to take matters into its own hands. New Mexico’s broadband office requested $70 million in state funds to help connect 95,000 locations with satellite broadband in the next two years.

X owner Elon Musk seemed to confirm what sharp-eyed users have suspected for months: that putting a link in your post on his social network is a good way to ensure it won’t go viral. Musk was replying to a post by the influential Silicon Valley investor Paul Graham, who opined that “the deprioritization of tweets with links in them is Twitter’s biggest flaw.” X’s main draw, Graham said, is “to find out what’s going on, and you can’t do that without links.” Musk’s 

A Chinese commercial vessel that has been surrounded by European warships in international waters for a week is central to an investigation of suspected sabotage that threatens to test the limits of maritime law—and heighten tensions between Beijing and European capitals. Investigators suspect that the crew of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier—225 meters long, 32 meters wide and loaded with Russian fertilizer—deliberately severed 

The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO), home to the Michigan High-Speed Internet Office (MIHI), is directed under state law to operate a broadband grant program consistent with the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund. The Realizing Opportunity with Broadband Infrastructure Networks (ROBIN) Program is designed to support the deployment of broadband infrastructure to locations currently without 100/20 megabits per second (Mbps) service.