Legislation

This episode of The Divide features John Horrigan, senior fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society. We discussed a new report released from Benton assessing the impact of the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) on low-income households and the economy at large.

Goal One for the District of Columbia State Broadband and Digital Equity Office is to make high-quality, affordable, high-speed internet accessible to all residents of D.C. in their homes and local Community Anchor Institutions (CAIs) and drive equitable adoption of broadband. Key to that goal is ensuring that no D.C. resident must pay more than two percent of their gross income per month for high-speed internet. But, as a percentage of the total population, D.C. has more people with income below 150 percent of the federal poverty line than the US does overall.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved New Mexico and Virginia’s Initial Proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. This approval enables New Mexico and Virginia to request access to funding and begin implementation of the BEAD program—a major step towards closing the digital divide and meeting the President’s goal of connecting everyone in America with affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet service.  The action allows states to request:  

When it comes to cable earnings, the outlook hasn’t been exactly optimistic. Cable broadband “may decline for the foreseeable future,” Wolfe Research recently predicted, as valuation multiples for Charter and Comcast “near all-time lows.” Charter and Comcast lost 149,000 and 120,000 broadband subscribers, respectively, in the second quarter.

States and localities find themselves in a historic moment in relation to broadband investment.

On July 24, the U.S.

For as long as the internet has existed, there’s been a gap between those who have access to it—and the means to afford it—and those who don’t. The vast majority of federal broadband spending over the past two decades has gone toward expanding internet access to rural areas. Only $14.2 billion went to making the internet more affordable through the Affordable Connectivity Program.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved Massachusetts' Initial Proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Internet for All” initiative. This approval enables Massachusetts to request access to funding and begin implementation of the BEAD program. The BEAD program is a $42.45 billion state grant program authorized by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

For several years now, a well-funded litigation group has sought an appellate court decision deeming the current method of funding the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund unconstitutional. The litigants finally hit paydirt in an enbanc appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled in their favor on a 9-7 vote. The litigants ostensibly expressed concerns about constitutional rights, economic freedom, what constitutes a tax, how specific a congressional delegation of authority has to be, and the extent to which the FCC could lawfully delegate administration of

We're in the thick of the process to distribute $42.5 billion of government funds to companies that will ultimately win Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds. Carol Mattey, a former deputy bureau chief with the Federal Communications Commission who now works as a broadband consultant said a handful of states, that are early in the game, are allowing pre-qualification applications for BEAD grants. Some of the states doing this include Missouri,