Level of Government

AT&T and the FirstNet Authority are sitting pretty after the FCC voted 4-0 to hand over a chunk of the 4.9 GHz band for the operation of FirstNet’s nationwide public safety network. The 50 megahertz of spectrum in question is reportedly worth up to $14 billion. But their giddiness might not last too long if the Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure (CERCI) has anything to do with it. CERCI is already threatening to challenge the FCC’s decision in court.

The race between Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat is among the more competitive races in the country. Races in the state’s 1st and 6th Congressional Districts are also toss-ups. Winning Congressional candidates will have a say in the country’s broadband future. Arizona has a unique set of broadband access and adoption challenges. Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has a record on broadband access and affordability issues.

Alan Davidson, chief of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the Commerce Department, dismissed Republican criticisms of the Biden administration’s $42 billion broadband expansion program as "election-year politics." Recent attacks have shifted toward Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been dubbed the "Broadband Czar" by Republicans like Sen.

The end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) put the kibosh on the business plans of internet service providers (ISPs) working to tackle the urban digital divide. I’m aware of a several ISPs working to bring broadband to neighborhoods where the majority of customers qualified for the $30 ACP discount.

November marks the tenth anniversary of NextLight: the municipal broadband provider for the city of Longmont, Colorado, launched in 2014 as the first municipal broadband network in the state.

Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) says she will build an Opportunity Economy where everyone has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead. Renewing the Federal Communications Commission's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is part of that agenda. Earlier this year, Congress failed to allocate funding for ACP and made monthly broadband bills more expensive for 23 million households enrolled in the program.

The upcoming election is poised to have major ramifications for regulation of the tech industry, with control of Congress and the White House virtually a toss-up just two weeks out. A look at the three top races to watch this cycle:

The Federal Communications Commission's Privacy and Data Protection Task Force announced additional partnerships between the agency’s Enforcement Bureau and state partners on privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity enforcement matters.

The 2024 Rural Telecommunications Benchmark Study provides data from 147 rural telecommunications companies and provides insight into the financial and operational performance of the telecommunications industry. As of June 2024, participating companies accepted $950 million of federal, state, and local government broadband grants compared to $600 as of 2022. THhis represents a 50 percent increase in broadband grants over the amounts for 2022.

Elon Musk made an explicitly future-forward pitch to Pennsylvania voters Saturday—arguing that a vote for former President Donald Trump was a vote for the progress of humanity itself. Musk has spoken at length about his desire for humanity to become a “spacefaring civilization” and colonize Earth’s moon or Mars, even specifying which type of government he thinks would fit an off-world colony (direct democracy). He’s been equally specific about what kind of government he thinks is necessary on Earth to enable that future, namely, one that will ease up on regulating his vast business empire.