Reporting

A system Google set up to promote competition on Android has left some smaller search engines having trouble gaining traction, fueling rivals’ complaints about the tech giant’s compliance with a European Union antitrust decision ahead of potential US charges. Since March, Google has been showing people in Europe who set up new mobile devices running the company’s Android operating system what it calls a “choice screen,” a list of rival search engines that they can select as the device’s default.

Shemar, a 12-year-old from East Baltimore, is good at math, and Karen Ngosso, his fourth grade math teacher at Abbottston Elementary School, is one reason why.  Remote learning started in earnest on April 6. For Shemar, that meant just four hours per week of live online instruction — an hour for each of the four main subjects once a week, with nothing on Fridays.

The Federal Communications Commission could look very different next year, even if President Donald Trump is reelected. If President Trump wins a second term, industry observers believe the agency will push ahead with the administration's desire to reform a prized legal shield for content moderation on online platforms and remain focused on expanding rural broadband policies.

If Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden gets elected, policy experts expect him to choose a new Federal Communications Commission. The term of the current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai does not end until Jan 2023, but FCC chairmen typically exit the commission before a new president takes office.

Computer shortages have raised nationwide concerns about educational inequities, which are amplified in tribal communities that resisted the Bureau of Indian Education’s (BIE) desire for in-person instruction in an effort to control rising cases of COVID-19. At least five BIE-operated schools in Arizona and five in other states were not prepared to start online because the bureau’s late disbursement of federal relief funding delayed purchases for needed laptops and internet hot spots in communities where fewer than half of rural households have access to broadband internet. BIE schools lagg

Verizon and AT&T have agreed to pay a combined $127 million to settle lawsuits alleging that they overcharged California and Nevada government entities for wireless service. The lawsuit was filed in 2012 and resulted in a settlement approved on Sept 24. "Verizon will pay $76 million and AT&T $51 million to settle claims that, for more than a decade, they knowingly ignored cost-saving requirements included in multibillion-dollar contracts offering wireless services to state and local government users in California, Nevada, and other states," the announcement said.

AT&T is giving wireless customers more flexibility by letting them pick a different unlimited plan for each line on their account.

Across the country as American schools struggle with whether to reopen or stay virtual, many rural districts are worried their students will fall even further behind than their city peers. This pandemic has shone a glaring light on a lot of inequalities. The federal government estimates that more than a third of rural America has little or no Internet.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai recently announced a couple of changes to the Lifeline program, which supplies phone and broadband services to people without the income to pay for them. Since his appointment in 2017, the former commissioner has worked to reduce costs while phasing out support for voice-only options in favor of high-speed Internet. The changes are simple: Starting Dec. 1, Lifeline’s mobile carriers will have to offer 4.5 GB of data each month, up from 3 GB.

In a small, one-story house in Ames, central Iowa officials got a look at a futuristic living space powered by what Mediacom calls "the next generation of broadband technology." The company debuted its "smart home," touting it as the first field trial in the country for a new 10G platform and showing more than 70 smart devices including many "bandwidth intensive" ones at work at once. The platform allows a ramp-up to 10 gigabits per second from the 1 gigabit speeds available today, Mediacom said.