Jericho Casper

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr acknowledged that the agency’s momentum could slow in the weeks ahead, saying staff shortages would likely force the FCC to trim its November meeting agenda. “We will try to move ahead with the November meeting, but not with quite as many items as we would ideally like,” Chairman Carr said. “You’ll see a bit more difficulty going forward, but we will try to keep moving forward the most important items with this limited staff.

A year after oral arguments, the fate of the Federal Communications Commission’s digital discrimination rules remains unresolved in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. A three-judge panel, all Republicans, heard the case, Minnesota Telecom Alliance v. FCC, on Sept. 25, 2024.

Why is it that households eligible for an income-based federal program don’t take advantage of it? Only 20 percent of eligible households use Lifeline, and fewer than one in five enroll in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, yet the Affordable Connectivity Program drove take-rates of about 43 percent, more than twice as high. At a 

Rural broadband executives told lawmakers that Congress must modernize the Universal Service Fund to keep small town networks affordable and sustainable. “USF doesn’t just cover network construction, but also ongoing operations, maintenance, and upgrades,” said witness Karen Jackson-Furman, CEO of West Kentucky and Tennessee Telecommunications Cooperative.

A coalition of public interest groups filed a formal challenge to a recent bureau-level decision at the Federal Communications Commission to delay rate caps that would make prison phone calls more affordable. Public interest groups including Worth Rises, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, filed an application for review urging the FCC to overturn the 

A surprise broadband mapping update under the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program did not trigger the mass disqualifications some state officials had feared. A June 6 policy update from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration required states to reevaluate whether areas served by unlicensed fixed wireless providers qualified for BEAD funding.

As broadband officials dig into the fine print of updated guidance governing a $42.45 billion federal broadband expansion program, many raised concerns about new advantages carved out for low-Earth orbit satellite providers. One of the clearest examples, they argued, was a provision under revised rules for the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program, that gives satellite providers up to 10 years to meet performance benchmarks—more than double the four years allowed for fiber and other technologies to comply.

One year after a key federal broadband subsidy ran out of money, millions of low-income American households have found themselves forced to reduce spending on food, medical care, and other essentials just to stay online. The Affordable Connectivity Program, hailed as a lifeline during the pandemic, expired on June 1, 2024, with no federal replacement in sight. More than 23 million U.S. households had relied on the $30-a-month broadband subsidy during its run from December 2021 to May 2024.

Protesters were forcibly removed from a heated House Commerce Committee hearing as lawmakers began marking up their portion of the reconciliation budget bill, which includes sweeping provisions on artificial intelligence regulation and spectrum policy. While the markup was dominated by partisan clashes over proposed Medicaid cuts, controversial communications measures that would block state and local governments from regulating AI systems until 2035 and reauthorize the 

Kristi Westbrock, CEO and general manager of Consolidated Telecommunications Company, warned that imposing a per-location price cap under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program would be “terribly detrimental” to the state’s progress toward universal fiber access. “All of the locations that are left are really high-cost areas,” she said at the USTelecom 2025 American Connectivity Forum. “So, the number one leading concern definitely is the discussion around ca