Universal Service Fund

The House on narrowly passed a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package crafted by Democrats. The bill passed by a vote of 208-199 and now heads to the Senate. One Republican backed the bill, while 14 Democrats voted against it. The House also passed a resolution to temporarily change House rules to allow for proxy voting and remote committee work during the pandemic, an unprecedented shift to how the chamber operates. It passed mostly along party lines.

On May 12, House Democrats unveiled the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act. "We are presenting a plan to do what is necessary to address the corona crisis," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she announced the legislation.

Lifeline is a Federal Communications Commission program that provides subsidized phone and internet services to low-income people and families. Those who use the program are provided with a landline phone, cellphone, or at-home broadband for free or at a discounted rate. But many lawmakers say the government is not promoting the service aggressively enough.

After Frontier Communications claimed that it now offers broadband in 17,000 rural census blocks in an effort to remove those areas from the Federal Communications Commission’s upcoming rural broadband funding program, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance filed comments with the FCC to draw attention to Frontier’s questionable claims. “We are concerned that Frontier may have overstated its capacity to actually deliver the claimed services in many areas,” the comments read.

With most of the US under orders to stay at home, many people are relying on their phones and computers to stay connected to the outside world through the internet.

Consumer Reports and Access Now are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to immediately expand broadband internet access for people struggling during the COVID-19 crisis. The organizations are filing petitions at the FCC signed by more than 63,000 concerned citizens. The petitions call for the FCC and Congress to support an expansion of the Lifeline program that provides a discount for broadband internet service to qualifying low-income consumers.

Efforts from the Federal Communications Commission to expand both fixed-wireless and mobile broadband across rural America will require more granular data to reach their full potential, but deployment efforts shouldn’t be delayed any longer, according to industry stakeholders and legislators testifying at a Senate hearing. The FCC has acknowledged that its data-collection processes are fundamentally flawed as carriers have overstated coverage in their self-reported map data.

The Senate Commerce Committee examined the ongoing initiatives led by the Federal Communications Commission to maintain and expand high-speed and reliable broadband connections to all Americans during this national public health emergency. The hearing also examined the impact of funds provided through the CARES Act to support broadband initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels, and legislative proposals focused on addressing the digital divide during the COVID-19 outbreak. Senators were joined by four witnesses: 

A years-long headache for the Park Hill (Kansas City, MO) School District has finally come to a satisfying resolution that could benefit schools and libraries across the US. Since Feb 2018, Park Hill has wrestled with the federal government to obtain E-rate funding for a fiber project connecting several of its schools. On April 27, the Federal Communications Commission finally granted Park Hill’s E-rate funding request in a decision that also sets a good precedent for the larger community of E-rate applicants.

If the coronavirus pandemic has taught the technology and communications policy world anything, it is that policymakers have utterly failed to meet the mission of the National Broadband Plan. Although the National Broadband Plan provided a road map and initially tracked progress, we have seen a relatively nonpartisan tech policy space abandon consensus views on the technicalities of the network and the importance of universal service principles.