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  2. April 2025

April 2025

Threats to Digital Equity Act Programs Will Leave Veterans Disconnected

Passed in 2021 as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Digital Equity Act established three grant programs to help close the digital divide by facilitating broadband adoption, implementing digital skills training programs, making internet-connected devices more available, and creating and improving public access computing centers. State broadband offices have spent over three years working on plans to close the digital divide among eight “covered populations,” including veterans.

Analysis

Threats to Digital Equity Act Programs Will Leave Veterans Disconnected

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

America Needs A Smart Reindustrialization To Compete With China

In our national discourse, it’s easy to retreat into comfortable tropes: “China bad,” “free markets good,” and “the next G is just around the corner.” But none of that is a plan. We need more than another slogan; America needs a real, tangible, industrial strategy. And it starts with a hard-nosed look at how China’s approach to 5G and smart manufacturing is reshaping the global balance of power. Let’s be clear: China’s rise is no longer just a story of cheap labor. That era is over.

FCC Clears Way for Wireless Innovation in Lower 37 GHz Band

The Federal Communications Commission adopted new sharing rules to bolster innovative commercial uses in the lower 37 GHz spectrum band. This new framework is expected to support Internet of Things systems, wireless broadband, internet backhaul connections, and greater capacity for mobile systems. The lower 37 GHz band is currently shared by the government and commercial entities, but there are no clear sharing rules for this spectrum, which is keeping companies from moving forward with deployments.

FCC Proposes to Codify and Streamline Foreign Ownership Regulations

The Federal Communications Commission proposed rules to codify certain foreign ownership requirements and streamline its review processes. To account for increasingly complex foreign ownership structures over the past decade, the FCC has employed certain practices but has never codified them into its rules. Without clear definitions, it’s harder for entities to understand and navigate FCC requirements, which puts them at risk for inconsistent outcomes and can needlessly raise costs. This action takes steps to define and simplify these requirements.

FCC to Review of Spectrum Sharing Rules to Unleash Space Innovation

The Federal Communications Commission initiated a review of the decades-old spectrum sharing regime between different types of satellite systems. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adopted April 28 begins a formal proceeding to enable greater and more intensive use of spectrum for space activities in the United States. In this proceeding, the FCC will look to update those power restrictions for use of the workhorse satellite frequencies (Ku- and Ka- bands) that support the next generation of satellite broadband constellations in Low-Earth Orbit.

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