Universal Service Fund

Emergency Broadband Benefit Program stakeholders adopted a variety of positions on specific issues, with attention coalescing around several points:

In light of the ongoing pandemic, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau finds good cause to extend, on its own motion, its prior waivers of the Lifeline program rules governing documentation requirements for subscribers residing in rural areas on Tribal lands, recertification, reverification, general de-enrollment, and income documentation through June 30, 2021.1 However, the bureau declines to further extend the existing waiver of the FCC's Lifeline usage requirement beyond May 1, 2021. At the expiration of the current waiver period on February 28, 2021, the r

The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) doesn’t appreciate all the scorn being heaped on fixed wireless access (FWA) technology, which is coming from some groups that didn’t win as many Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) awards as they had hoped.

A group of K-12 organizations has banded together to urge the Federal Communications Commission to incorporate cybersecurity purchases into the E-rate program. The goal of the 35-page petition is to help school districts protect their networks and data by expanding E-rate in three ways:

The debate over reopening schools amid the ongoing pandemic is spilling into negotiations over billions of dollars in new money to help students who lack home internet access. As Democrats in Congress push forward with a plan to provide $7.6 billion for a program that provides discounted laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots to schools and libraries, Republicans are questioning whether the funding is necessary when President Joe Biden has said he wants to reopen a majority of public schools in the coming months.

Appalachia represents a key test for President Joe Biden's $20 billion plan to get broadband access to communities that don't have it. President Biden, who said during his campaign that rebuilding the middle class in America is the "moral obligation of our time," faces a myriad of challenges in closing the gap, from actually laying down fiber-optic lines to educating consumers and ensuring that prices are affordable. In 127 of Appalachia's 420 counties, less than 75% of households had a connected device.

Public Knowledge joined Access Humboldt, Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, Consumer Reports, and New America’s Open Technology Institute (collectively PIOs) in filing comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Notice on the use of E-Rate funds to enable remote learning.

Verizon's $6.2 billion bid to buy wireless company TracFone has raised concerns that the deal could cut off access to affordable mobile phone service. The deal has flown under the radar, but TracFone is one of the nation's largest providers of subsidized cell phone service for low income people, an especially important program during the coronavirus pandemic — and one that Verizon hasn't traditionally focused on. The Justice Department declined to dig deeper into the deal in November, signaling that it didn't raise competition concerns.

Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and John Thune (R-SD) sent a letter to to Acting Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission Jessica Rosenworcel raising concerns about the Universal Service Fund’s (USF) long-term sustainability as a mechanism to close the nation’s digital divide.

The NARUC board of directors unanimously approved: Resolution on the Federal Communications Commission’s Review of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Auction Bidders Long Forms