After deciding to shut New York and Alaska out of the new Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has made another change that could reduce or eliminate funding available for broadband providers in other US states.
Sixty-one percent of the US population had low-priced wired broadband available to them in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to new broadband affordability research from BroadbandNow. Researchers defined low-priced service to include offerings priced at $60 or less. This was a substantial increase from the third quarter of 2019, when 52% of the US population had low-priced service available.
For more than a year, the [Federal Communications Commission] was silent after news reports alerted us that for just a few hundred dollars, shady middlemen could sell your location within a few hundred meters based on your wireless phone data. It’s chilling to consider what a black market could do with this data. It puts the safety and privacy of every American with a wireless phone at risk. Today this agency finally announced that this was a violation of the law. Millions and millions of Americans use a wireless device every day and didn’t sign up for or consent to this surveillance.
On Jan 31, 2020, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai wrote the following to various Members of Congress:
On Dec 9, 48 senators wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to say that, as the FCC considers new rules in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), it should emphasize the importance of sustainable networks that meet the needs of consumers now and in the future.
On Dec 19, 2019, House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR), and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to raise concerns about the unreliable data collected for the Mobility Fund Phase II (MF II) coverage maps, and therefore concerns about the announcement that MF II will be replaced with a new 5G Fund.
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