Frontier Communications ramped up its fiber expansion plan, aiming to reach a total of 10 million locations by the end of 2025 rather than its original target of 6 million. The operator also plans to rollout symmetrical 2 Gbps service in Q1 of 2022.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved several fiscal year 2022 appropriations bills with strong bipartisan support. The Fiscal Year 2022 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill was reported out of Committee on a vote of 25 to 5. If the bill becomes law, the USDA's ReConnect broadband program would receive $700 million. The program will expand access to high-speed broadband to remote unserved and underserved rural areas.
This report documents broadband initiatives at the county and city levels in areas statewide. It also highlights specific broadband access and adoption programs launched in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Corian Zacher, Next Century Cities’ Policy Counsel for State and Local Initiatives and lead researcher, said, “Ohio is well-known for innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
The telecommunications industry rejoiced when the Federal Communications Commission announced it was prepared to release the first batch of funding — some $311 million — from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction. But in the same breath, the agency revealed a long list of winning bidders who have already defaulted on their obligations and hinted many more could soon follow suit.
Several nonprofit groups held a “wireless boot camp” for Tribal nations from Northern California, the first in what organizers said will be a series of training sessions for Native American communities seeking to improve their connectivity where commercial internet service providers haven’t. Members of the Yurok Tribe, Hoopa Valley Tribe and Bear River Band met with experts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), the Internet Society and the University of Washington. The gathering, attended by about 20 people, was a chance for tribes that received
Acknowledging that there’s no closing the digital divide without anchors, the Senate infrastructure bill's broadband component adopts a broad definition of “community anchor institution” that includes public housing authorities, healthcare providers, and other community support organizations – anchors that vulnerable populations depend upon the most. Yet when doling out the funding, the program relegates anchors to third priority, meaning that funds may be completely awarded to connect unserved and underserved households before any funding goes to anchor institution connectivity.
The Biden administration’s broadband plan has been steadily scaled back by “bipartisan compromise” and telecommunications lobbying. While Congress is finalizing a $65 billion version that contains some excellent improvements, experts say it falls well short of fixing the real problem: broadband monopolization and the high prices that result. Roughly two thousand companies and organizations have been lobbying Congress to impact the infrastructure proposal, telecommunications giants among them.
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