Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

Spectrum  announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to more than 153 homes and small businesses in rural areas of Perry County (IL), west of Coulterville and north of Swanwick and Winkle. Spectrum’s multi-year rural construction initiative is driven by more than $7 billion in private investment from the company and will ultimately add an additional 100,000+ miles of fiber-optic network infrastructure and deliver symmetrical and multi-gigabit speed internet access to more than 1.7 million new locations across the country.

Spectrum announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to 135 homes and small businesses in rural areas of Washington County (IL), northwest of Beaucoup. Spectrum’s multi-year rural construction initiative is driven by more than $7 billion in private investment from the company and will ultimately add an additional 100,000+ miles of fiber-optic network infrastructure and deliver symmetrical and multi-gigabit speed internet access to more than 1.7 million new locations across the country.

The House Commerce Committee reported 20 pieces of legislation to the full House of Representatives including the following bills:  

Spectrum announced the expansion of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to more than 230 homes and small businesses in previously unserved or underserved addresses in portions of northeast Dane County and southeast Columbia County (WI). Spectrum’s multi-year Rural Construction Initiative is driven by an approximately $7 billion private investment from Charter and will ultimately connect approximately 1.7 million new homes and small businesses across the country.

Jim Stritzinger, Director of the South Carolina Broadband Office, likes “to think of the work we’re doing as an Olympic relay race.” The first leg, he said, was the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. The second leg was federal funding like the US Department of Agriculture’s ReConnect Loan and Grant Program and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. The third leg was the American Rescue Plan Act.

The Universal Service Fund’s day in court came and went, and the U.S. telecommunications industry still has hope the subsidy will live to see another day. But even if the Supreme Court deems the USF framework constitutional, there’s still no easy path to reform the program. The Supreme Court heard arguments related to the Fifth Circuit’s decision that the USF’s funding method is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court held oral arguments in Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers' Research, a case challenging the legality of the Universal Service Fund framework.

The Universal Service Fund has done little or nothing for universal service. Mobile phones and the internet have become ubiquitous in rural areas and among those of low income. Most schools, libraries, and healthcare facilities have been hooked up for years (to the dismay of many teachers). This is thanks to the alacrity of today’s high technology, massive private investments, profound improvements in service quality and proficiency, and constantly falling prices.

Missouri was the first state to ask the Federal Communications Commission to return Rural Digital Opportunity Fund broadband funding awarded to providers in the state who later defaulted on their awards.

It was to be one hour of oral arguments about the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Universal Service Fund (USF) program, considering whether Congress delegated too much of its authority when it created the program in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Instead, U.S. Supreme Court justices spent more than two and a half hours peppering attorneys with questions about the nature of USF, whether the statute fails to set limits on the amount of funding it can collect and whether those fees are, in fact, taxes on the American public that Congress never debated.