April 2022

NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association urged the Federal Communications Commission to waive scheduled cuts to Universal Service Fund (USF) support for rural operators, arguing a reduction in financial assistance could force them to raise rates for consumers or halt planned network investments. The organization’s concern relates to the Connect America Fund Broadband Loop Support and High-Cost Loop Support programs. Both are targeted at smaller operators and are designed to make the economics of deploying and providing broadband service in rural areas more sustainable.

The Illinois Electric Cooperative (IEC) said it will use funding received through the Connect America Fund II (CAF II) auction to deploy fixed wireless in rural Pike County (IL). IEC will use technology from Ericsson and Xtreme LTE for the deployment, which will use the CBRS spectrum. The companies did not indicate whether the spectrum to be used is in the licensed or unlicensed portion of the band. Fixed wireless technology has made big gains in recent years, and both LTE and CBRS spectrum were key developments to boost speeds and performance.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) announced the launch of the 5G Challenge in collaboration with the Department of Defense (DoD). ITS, the US’s Spectrum and Communications Lab, supports the Department of Defense 5G Initiative through a combination of its subject matter experts in 5G and its research, development, test, and evaluation laboratory infrastructure in Boulder (CO).