A timely and important discussion with Sindy Benavides, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) on some of the best ideas for closing the digital divide that LULAC has surfaced among its members, including lessons learned from prior attempts to increase broadband adoption with investments from the federal government.
Federal Communications Commissioner Brandon Carr released an extraordinary statement worth reading. Carr is taking exception to the final rules from the Treasury Department concerning how communities can use the $350 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The commissioner is asking states to somehow intervene in the way that cities, counties, and towns elect to use these funds.
Internet2 has finished the transition of its research and education network traffic to the fifth-generation backbone that interconnects with 37 state and regional networks, serving every state in the country. It’s an important development because the network serves a critical niche in the national broadband infrastructure and underpins high-capacity and advanced services. In 2021, Internet2 moved over 2.75 exabytes of data, equivalent to a video call that is 594,557 years long, or 27.5 million high-definition films.
President Joe Biden donned the jersey of Team Delay by making it clear he had pushed for airlines to get more time to account for certain kinds of legacy aviation equipment. “What I’ve done is pushed as hard as I can to have the 5G folks hold up and abide by what was being requested by the airlines until they could more modernize over the years, so 5G would not interfere with the potential of a landing,” Biden said.
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