Reporting

The entire Illinois Congressional Delegation in the US House of Representatives sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to improve the nation’s broadband maps. The delegation asked Chairman Ajit Pai and the four FCC commissioners to reform the mapping process for broadband services. “As we work to repair and rebuild our nation’s infrastructure, we must ensure that those in rural America have access to high-quality and reliable fixed or mobile broadband,” the representatives said in the letter.

Experts say it could be up to five years before customers in smaller cities like Fargo (ND) and Bismarck (ND) can expect to see 5G wireless, and it likely will be available only in densely populated areas, such as the downtowns, the campus of North Dakota State University or state capitol complex. That’s because 5G uses very high-frequency radio waves that travel very short distances, requiring a dense — and very expensive — network of transmitters that are cost-effective only in very urban environments.

Sprint and T-Mobile's on-again-off-again $26 billion merger appears to be on again, leaving the combined company poised to become the second-largest wireless provider in the country. Pending all parties agree on concessions, the Justice Department will approve the deal by the end of the week of June 17 or beginning the week of June 24, apparently. The concessions would likely include the sale of Boost Mobile, Sprint's discount, pay-as-you-go wireless service. However, negotiations are still ongoing and the Department of Justice is prepared to litigate if the negotiations fall through.

In a case closely watched for its potential implications for social media, the Supreme Court has ruled that a nonprofit running public access channels isn’t bound by governmental constraints on speech. The case, which the conservative wing of the court decided in a split 5–4 ruling, centered around a Manhattan-based nonprofit tasked by New York City with operating public access channels in the area. The organization disciplined two producers after a film led to complaints, which the producers argued was a violation of their First Amendment speech rights.

The Federal Communications Commission is "soft" launching its national Lifeline eligibility verifier in another 11 states on June 25: Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. Eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) in those states who are eligible for the Lifeline subsidies will not be able to begin any subscriber recertifications after June 25 and should wrap up any current certifications under the existing rules by Aug 30.

The Kremlin warned that reported American hacking into Russia’s electric power grid could escalate into a cyberwar with the United States, but insisted that it was confident in the system’s ability to repel electronic attacks. Dmitri S. Peskov,  Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s spokesman, also raised concerns that President Donald Trump was reportedly not informed about the effort, which was the subject of a New York Times report on June 15 that detailed an elaborate system of cybertools deployed by the United States inside Russia’s energy system and other targets.

AT&T has informed employees of plans to cut another 1,800 jobs from its wireline division. AT&T declared more than 1,800 jobs nationwide as "surplus," meaning they are slated to be eliminated in Aug or Sept, said the Communications Workers of America (CWA). AT&T said that most affected union workers will be able to stay at the company in other positions. 

Competition for the 900mHz segment of the radiofrequency spectrum has grown fierce in recent years as more operators are pushed out of licensed spectrum and into the electromagnetic doldrums. What was once a lonely spectral highway for local news channels and the occasional surveying project is now crisscrossed with signal traffic from all kinds of industrial Internet of Things (IoT).

A proliferation of antitrust investigations into the tech giants is offering competitors a chance to sound off on claims that their larger rivals are playing dirty. If the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission pursue formal investigations into Google, Facebook, Amazon or Apple, they’ll need all the evidence they can get. The companies that compete with them could provide that by the ton. But, speaking up can come at a cost to smaller companies, including angering the powerful corporate giants and signaling to investors that you might go under without government intervention.

Google has been treating Beto O'Rourke's campaign ads as if they weren’t political content, raising questions over whether Google is capable of keeping its already anemic promise of transparency for political ads. Google has promised to put ads it receives from candidates for US federal political offices in its political ad archive, for transparency’s sake. But the Beto ads were missing from the archive. Google’s own rules don’t allow any political content in Gmail ads, but Beto’s campaign ads kept showing up there.