Universal Service Fund

There’s a common complaint among high school students across the country, and it has nothing to do with curfews or allowances: Internet filters are preventing them from doing online research at school. School districts must block obscene or harmful images to qualify for federally-subsidized internet access under the Children’s Internet Protection Act, passed by Congress nearly 25 years ago. But the records, from 16 districts across 11 states, show they go much further. Some of the censorship inhibits students’ ability to do basic research on sites like Wikipedia and Quora.

The Mississippi broadband office is responding to allegations raised by a legal organization that claims the state is failing to conduct equitable local coordination and outreach with underrepresented communities in preparation of allocating $1.2 billion to expand broadband infrastructure.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau announced that RiverStreet Communications of North Carolina has notified the FCC that it will not fulfill its commitment to offer voice and broadband service to certain census block groups (CBGs) within its Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II auction supported service area in North Carolina. In addition, Cebridge Telecom LA and Cable One VoIP LLC d/b/a Sparklight have notified the FCC of their decisions to withdraw from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support program in all the CBGs covered by their authorized win

Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) led his colleagues in filing an amicus brief opposing the Biden administration’s recent decision to expand the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) E-Rate program to fund Wi-Fi on school buses. The Fifth Circuit lawsuit, Molak v.

Great Plains Communications (GPC) has been awarded a total of $3.54M as one of the winning bids through the Nebraska Public Service Commission’s (PSC) 2024 Reverse Auction to expand broadband access to more than 1,100 households in unserved areas of Nebraska. GPC’s funding will assist in providing high-speed fiber broadband services to approximately 310 unserved households in rural areas of Columbus, Hebron, Kearney, Madison, Mead, Monroe, Nebraska City, Palmer, Seward and Superior, Nebraska.

Mediacom is proving that even though it's a cable and fiber provider, it's happy to use fixed wireless access (FWA), too. Mediacom will use Tarana’s next-generation fixed wireless access (ngFWA) broadband technology in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina—states where it’s won funding from the Federal Communications Commission's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). The operator’s required RDOF buildout target is 5,694 locations, said Thomas Larsen, Mediacom’s SVP of government and public relations.

In August 2020, during the heart of the covid-19 pandemic when many schools were closed, social media and news outlets were awash with a picture of two grade school students sitting outside of a Taco Bell, attempting to do their schoolwork.

Breezeline has begun to activate fiber internet in previously unserved areas of King William County, Virginia. The 132-mile fiber expansion will make fiber available to over 1,500 homes and businesses by August 2025. The initiative will enable homes and businesses in King William County to access Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) technology with Gigabit-speed internet for the very first time.

A number of former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officials are pointing to expanding the Lifeline program, under the Universal Service Fund (USF), as the way to save a version of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), and prevent tens of millions of people from losing access to the monthly broadband subsidy. One way the FCC could do that was outlined in a recent petition for expedited rulemaking filed

A group known as the "coalition of RDOF winners" has weighed in on whether the Federal Communications Commission should grant an amnesty period for providers to relinquish their locations awarded through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) in the interest of making those locations available for the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program instead.