Level of Government

In August 2022, the Federal Communications Commission denied the SpaceX (Starlink) bid to receive $885 million over ten years through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). The FCC went on to say in the order that there were several technical reasons for the Starlink rejection. Starlink appealed the FCC ruling. Current federal grant rules don’t allow federal subsidies to be given to any area that is slated to get another federal broadband subsidy. This has meant that the RDOF areas have been off-limits to other federal grants since the end of 2020.

City of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and County Executive Rich Fitzgerald created the Pittsburgh Digital Equity Coalition (PDEC), a working group of anchor organizations already working to promote digital equity and smaller community groups with intimate knowledge of the community need.

5G, and the technologies it can enable, are not promised to us. As those in rural America well know, 5G is not an inevitability, or simply a function of time and technological development. It is the product of purposeful effort and long-term planning. The capitalintensive 5G transition has been a decade in the making and we are poised to fully deploy 5G in C-Band spectrum, with the auction of the 3.45 GHz band in sight. But much work remains.

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development is awarding $446,770,282 in grants for the expansion of internet access across Tennessee. Nearly $50 million more will be directed to broadband adoption and digital literacy efforts. More than 150,000 unserved homes and businesses in 58 counties receiving broadband access. Priority was given to applicants with the lowest internet speeds, though all “unserved” areas (where only services with speeds below 100 Mbps download speed and 20 Mbps upload) were considered for the grant.

On September 21, 2022, representatives from the USTelecom – the Broadband Association, CTIA, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association, and ACA Connects – America’s Communications Association met with staffers in the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics to offer recommendations to maximize the effectiveness of the Affordable Connectivity Program’s (ACP) data collection and to keep it simple, streamlined, and efficient for the benefit of consumers and providers alike.

 US Ignite curates the best practices in designing and delivering smart city projects with leading-edge municipalities. These five practices on handling partnerships can help any smart city service, project, or application – at any phase – find success:

States have begun to produce their own mapping data for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant allocation.

A US Department of Agriculture (USDA) release of the latest grant winners for the ReConnect broadband deployment program was the cost of deploying fiber in rural America. Looking at rural Alaska as an example, the Alaska Telephone Company, which won a $33 million grant, is planning to run fiber to 211 homes and five businesses at a staggering cost of nearly $204,000 per passing. In addition to the grant, the operator said it plans to invest $11 million of its own money in the project.

Thirteen Republican Senators sent a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) asking the agency to change its approach to administering some of the provisions of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants. The letter specifically asked for changes related to rate regulation, technology preference, provider preference, workforce requirements, middle mile deployments, and the application review process (You can read the letter here). It’s

Common Sense and Public Knowledge recommend that the Universal Service Administrative Company make additional types of data available through the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) Enrollment Claims Tracker. The tracker is the main source of publicly-available data on the ACP. However, the tracker currently lacks key types of data to precisely measure the effect of these campaigns or understand the quality of the services and devices purchased.