In the latest round of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund awards, the Federal Communications Commission said it is ready to authorize funding for Windstream and 11 other companies. Windstream winning bids fill more than 60 of the 80 total pages that comprise the list. The FCC said it is ready to authorize Windstream winning bids in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio. LTD Broadband is not among them and the company got some bad RDOF news from the FCC. The commission said it would not extend the deadline for the company to receive eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) status in North Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa. Winning bidders are required to have ETC designation in states for which they won funding and the deadline to obtain that designation was June 7, 2021. The FCC took issue with the fact that LTD didn’t file with the public service commissions (PSCs) in the three states until five months after being advised of its winning bids. LTD Broadband had requested a waiver in these states, saying that it understood that the PSCs could issue ETC approvals within 30 days and its ETC filings were made 30 days before the deadline.

AT&T announced it is investing tens of millions of dollars to further harden its network in Louisiana against the impact of hurricanes and tropical storms by burying fiber-optic infrastructure previously deployed on poles across some of the hardest-hit areas during Hurricane Ida. Previous reporting indicated that AT&T plans to swap copper for fiber in significantly damaged areas.  The primary focus of the project is work in parts of the Bayou parishes and in and around the New Orleans area, including Jefferson, Lafourche, Orleans, St Charles, St James, and Terrebonne parishes. The fast-tracked project is targeted for completion in the first half of 2022 with a majority of the work scheduled for completion in 2021. As a result of decades of investment in Louisiana, AT&T's extensive fiber-optic network connects businesses and residents in communities across the state and provides critical backhaul for its wireless network. In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, multiple cuts to key fiber-optic lines occurred in storm-impacted areas, and this new initiative will help enhance network resiliency in future storms.

This report explores broadband and computer connectivity in Philadelphia, with a special focus on connectivity since the COVID-19 pandemic. Notable findings include:

• Home broadband adoption grew from 70 percent (according to the 2019 American Community Survey) to 84 percent in Philadelphia according to data released from a June-July 2021 survey of 2,500 Philadelphia city households.
• More than half of growth is due to discount programs: Of the 14 percentage-point increase, more than half is attributable to households signing up for free or discount internet offers (e.g. Comcast Internet Essentials, T-Mobile Project10million, or the Emergency Broadband Benefit).
• Post-pandemic connectivity gains are tenuous. 32 percent of all households are "subscription vulnerable" in that they would have a difficult time maintaining service without a discount offer or experienced service interruption in the pandemic due to difficulty in paying bills.
• Awareness of free/discount programs: 13 percent of all households had heard of the EBB and 31 percent had heard of discount programs such as Internet Essentials.
• Affordability is the chief barrier to not having service: 42 percent cite cost as the most important reason they lack home broadband, 22 percent say their smartphone is sufficient, 14 percent are not interested in service, and 12 percent lack "digital readiness" for using the internet.

[Benton Senior Fellow John B. Horrigan designed and analyzed the survey]

In meetings with Federal Communications Commission staff, NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association reiterated its support for ensuring that lowincome consumers have affordable access to the voice service they need and therefore urged the Commission to retain the Lifeline subsidy for stand-alone voice service. Voice service remains critical for many low-income and older individuals who rely on such service as an affordable method of contacting health care providers, government agencies, and public safety. NTCA further stressed the urgent need for FCC action on the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates petition for reconsideration seeking to maintain Lifeline support for stand-alone voice service. Carriers all across the nation will very soon be required to inform low-income consumers of the loss of this critical subsidy if Lifeline support for standalone voice service is not retained – indeed, notices must be included in subscriber bills very soon in order to arrive by November 1. If the FCC elects to retain the voice-only discount after the required notices are provided and tariffs are amended, there is substantial likelihood for customer confusion.

Across America, 5G mobile networks are going up, which eventually will supplant the internet backbone we use for nearly all communications. With minor changes, the Pentagon’s ongoing 5G demonstrations, 2020's appropriations to replace Chinese network equipment, and the proposed Infrastructure and Jobs Act could combine to spur deployment of open 5G architectures that would create a market for US telecommunications equipment builders and installers. Analysts have noted today’s 5G networks generally provide only modest improvements over 4G LTE systems. Open radio access networks, or O-RAN, would allow easier installation of better hardware over time compared to integrated proprietary networks. More importantly, O-RAN would allow hardware to be virtualized, or replaced by software, which would improve performance and allow the introduction of features such as machine learning and edge processing needed for applications such as traffic control or remote surgery. The Federal Communications Commission, Congress and the Department of Defense should not miss this rare opportunity to apply billions of dollars toward the next generation in communications technology. Rather than putting Band-Aids on today’s security and broadband coverage shortfalls, the shift to 5G O-RAN will help revive the US telecommunications industry and enable long-term economic growth.

[Bryan Clark is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Hudson Center for Defense Concepts and Technology. Dan Patt is a senior fellow at the Hudson Center for Defense Concepts and Technology.]

Sens Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Edward J Markey (D-MA) wrote a letter urging the Federal Communications Commission to take action in response to national security risks posed by foreign companies that manage and service US wireless phone networks. Although the US government has responded forcefully to risks from Chinese hardware manufacturers, including Huawei and ZTE, it has not yet accounted for risks from foreign companies that operate or maintain US networks. Indeed, there is not even a comprehensive accounting of how many foreign companies provide such services to US networks. Many foreign service providers are subject to foreign surveillance laws, and as such, could be forced to abuse their access to US networks to help foreign intelligence services spy on American subscribers. In addition to the threat of compelled surveillance assistance, the senators are also concerned by media reports suggesting that managed service providers may be partnering with for-profit surveillance companies, creating the possibility that these companies could provide their authoritarian clients with trusted access to US telecommunications networks. The senators asked the FCC to identify foreign managed service providers and work with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other agencies to identify high-risk firms that could threaten US national security.

Facebook is looking to introduce more news products for its News Tab in the coming months, including more curated collections around big events and breaking news. The News Tab, a separate destination for news on Facebook from publishers selected by the tech giant, has helped the company address regulatory scrutiny that it doesn't do enough to combat misinformation. It is currently live in the US, UK, Australia and Germany, with other English-speaking countries in consideration. Facebook says the News Tab now contributes to over 30 percent of overall Facebook news link referral traffic for US, UK and German publishers included in the tab. Publishers have said Facebook's News Tab has so far been a more reliable source of traffic than the News Feed. For years the company was hesitant to lean into news curation, with its chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg saying in 2017 "we don't hire journalists." But today, the company leans on people with editorial backgrounds to curate products in its News Tab in addition to using algorithms. Soon it will begin including content from its Bulletin newsletter program writers into its news products within the News Tab.