Upcoming event

The OVBI Q4 2023 webinar will include a fireside chat with OpenVault CEO and Founder, Mark Trudeau, and Chief Product Officer, Brady Volpe. We'll uncover insights that will take your broadband service into the next era. Stay tuned as we dive into the incredible growth of broadband usage, breaking 600GB and redefining broadband once again. OpenVault will highlight tools that are predictive, prescriptive, and future-proof to help your network keep pace and excel in user satisfaction, quality of experience (QoE) and subscriber retention.

Broadband Annual Meeting

8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.

Registration/Check-In

Coffee and a light breakfast will be provided

9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.

Opening Welcome and Introductions

9:15 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

Keynote Address

9:30 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.

Fireside Chat: The Office of Broadband Development Executive Director’s Reflections

10:15 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

American Connection Corps Lightening Round

Next Century Cities’ Bipartisan Tech Policy Conference returns this year as local, state, federal, and Tribal officials, policy advocates, and residents in every community dream about the connected future we can create. This year’s conference will be held in person in Washington, D.C. for the first time since 2020.

As of February 8th, 2024, the Affordable Connectivity Program (“ACP”), the largest and most successful broadband affordability program in our nation, stopped accepting new enrollments. Without additional funding from Congress, it is anticipated that April will be the last month currently enrolled households will receive the full ACP benefit. Join us this week as FBA CEO and President, Gary Bolton, discusses the impact of the ACP wind-down on broadband affordability in Mississippi with Chip Pickering (INCOMPAS), Quinn Jordan (MSBA), and Adeyinka Ogunlegan (Education Superhighway).

Satellite spectrum usage is governed largely by legacy frameworks that may not be appropriate given increased deployments and use of satellite connections. What new developments from WRC-23 affect satellite policy going forward? The FCC’s Space Bureau, other federal agencies and international bodies, have levers to speed up or slow down innovation in space. What is the state of policy in satellite spectrum, can there be more flexibility or is command and control inevitable?

The federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program will provide $42 billion to states to improve high-speed internet access for unserved and underserved locations, including libraries. 

But there is a catch. Your library must be on the map as lacking gigabit service to get BEAD funding. Many maps are wrong and miss libraries that need better broadband. Luckily, most states will let libraries file a “challenge” to fix the map.

Featuring information security executive and social scientist Tarah Wheeler.

Finding and clearing new spectrum bands for a pipeline of mid-band flexible use spectrum along with satellite and unlicensed bands can seem like a herculean task amidst formidable institutional structures and processes. Where can we expect to see movement in spectrum reauthorization, mid-band clearing, and results from newly deployed shared bands? What incentives are needed to keep up with global competition?

Net neutrality protections are essential to advancing digital equity. These rules ensure all internet users have access to content on an equal basis and prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking, throttling, or engaging in paid prioritization of content. In November 2023, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed reinstating net neutrality protections, returning to rules originally adopted in 2015, by establishing broadband internet access service (BIAS) as a Title II telecommunications service.