Ensuring everyone has access to affordable, reliable internet is key to unlocking educational, economic, and civic potential. The Michelson 20MM Foundation is committed to closing the digital divide, especially for underserved and historically marginalized communities.
When the Supreme Court released its decision in June 2025 declaring that the Universal Service Fund is constitutional, telecommunications and broadband industry groups breathed a collective sigh of relief while also calling on Congress once again to pass reforms to strengthen and improve the USF, which supports several high-cost and low-income telecommunications programs to the tune of $8 billion/year.
The Federal Communications Commission is once again being asked to tread carefully around the shared CBRS band and the 6GHz band as the agency embarks on a mandate to free up and auction 800MHz of spectrum in the coming years via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Charlie Ergen is reputed to be a mean card player. For years, EchoStar's inscrutable founder was the subject of intense speculation about what he would do with his huge holdings of spectrum, the invisible vehicle for any wireless signal. The answer became apparent when Ergen staked some of his frequency cards on the construction of a fourth US mobile network based on open radio access network technology, touted as a low-cost alternative to a traditional deployment. Or did it?
The Starlink satellite broadband service remains largely relegated to rural areas and does not yet represent a major, direct competitor to wireline broadband service providers and fixed wireless access offerings in urban areas. But Starlink's expanding presence at retail sites—along with some recent price cuts—indicates the company isn't content for the service to be limited as a niche offering.
There was an Executive Order in August 2025 from the White House that made some fundamental changes to the way that federal grants work—some positive and some negative. The EO is titled Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking. The Order instructs the Office of Management and Budget to overhaul the Uniform Grant Guidelines and other related documents related to all federal grants.
The Universal Service Fund should emphasize ongoing operational support for rural internet service providers rather than one-time construction funding, several rural broadband trade groups told lawmakers. “Unfortunately, at times in the past discussion surrounding the High-Cost Fund has focused so much upon construction—the question of initial network availability—that it has become confused with grants.
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