The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $11.8 million in grants to provide broadband service in unserved and underserved rural areas in Arkansas. Mountain View Telephone Company (MVTC) will use a $2.9 million ReConnect grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect 1,331 people, 39 farms, six businesses, two fire stations, and one post office to high-speed broadband internet in Stone County, Arkansas. Northern Arkansas Telephone Company (NATCO) will use a $4.7 million ReConnect grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect 1,202 people, 68 farms, and six businesses to high-speed broadband internet in Marion County, Arkansas. Arkansas Telephone Company (ATC) will use a $4.1 million grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect 491 people, 92 farms, and four businesses to high-speed broadband internet in Pope and Van Buren counties in Arkansas.

Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks called for new scrutiny of undersea cables that transmit nearly all the world’s internet data traffic at the FCC meeting Sept 30.  “We must take a closer look at cables with landing locations in adversary countries,” Commissioner Starks said. “This includes the four existing submarine cables connecting the US and China, most of which are partially owned by Chinese state-owned companies.” Commissioner Starks said the FCC “must ensure that adversary countries and other hostile actors can’t tamper with, block, or intercept the communications they carry.”

31% of Black households do not have high-speed home broadband, affecting Black school-aged children and their ability to complete homework assignments at a disproportionate rate. Traditionally, there has not been a consistent focus on the improving the educational opportunities of Black children, but amid the first pandemic in over 100 years, a 13% Black unemployment rate, and no clear plan from our government on how to resolve this crisis, Black K-12 children are especially at risk of falling even further behind without access to the remote learning opportunities that broadband connectivity brings. The debate surrounding access to broadband connectivity is often framed as a “rural only” issue, even though there are more than three times as many urban households than rural households that do not have any kind of home broadband. 

The National Urban League strongly supports an Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB). An EBB would allow qualifying individuals or families to receive a monthly subsidy to purchase broadband internet from participating providers. This benefit should also be extended to those individuals who qualify for the Federal Communications Commission current eligibility requirements such as SNAP, Medicaid, and SSI recipients. And considering current unemployment rate for Black America, Congress should also extend eligibility to those who have lost their jobs as a result of the circumstances of the pandemic.

[Danielle Adrianna Davis, Esq is an Attorney and National Urban League Tech Fellow]

The Report assesses industry compliance over the past two years with sections 255, 716, and 718 of the Communications Act of 1934. These sections require telecommunications and advanced communications services and equipment, and Internet browsers built into mobile phones (collectively, covered products and services) to be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities. The Report also addresses accessibility barriers to new communications technologies, and the effect of the accessibility-related recordkeeping and enforcement requirements under section 717 on the development and deployment of such technologies. Finally, the Report provides information about the number and nature of, and actions taken to resolve, complaints alleging violations of sections 255, 716, and 718 for the period of January 1, 2018, through December 31, 2019, including the length of time that the Federal Communications Commission took to resolve such complaints, and the number, status, nature, and outcome of any actions for mandamus filed, and of any appeals filed, pertaining to such complaints.

The FCC finds that over the last two years, the record demonstrates significant additional improvements in these areas. It bases this finding on the following: (1) smartphones continue to innovate and incorporate features that enable improved access to telecommunications and advanced communications services; (2) speech-to-text and text-to-speech technology, voice assistants, and screen readers continue to advance; and (3) newer devices such as smart speakers and enhanced compatibility between assistive technologies and advanced communications equipment enable more people with disabilities to communicate. Nonetheless, the record also indicates that accessibility gaps continue to exist with respect to (1) the availability of accessible mobile phones with low-end features, functions, and prices for people who are blind and (2) certain apps that provide telecommunications and advanced communications services that are not readable by screen readers. Further, we find no record evidence that the enforcement and recordkeeping obligations of Section 717 of the CVAA have impeded the development or deployment of new communications technologies.

Hundreds of school-age children in suburban Cook County (IL)  public housing will get free laptops paid for by federal coronavirus stimulus money starting Oct 7, as part of an ongoing effort to ensure digital access after the COVID-19 pandemic upended in-person learning. About $270,000 of CARES Act money allocated to the Housing Authority of Cook County (HACC) will be used to purchase laptops for 900 students who live in the public housing complexes to keep and otherwise would struggle to complete remote learning. The giveaway is part of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s efforts to address long-standing racial inequities that have intensified under the grip of the coronavirus.

HACC Executive Director Richard Monocchio said the new program was an “incalculable investment” because unlike electronic devices loaned from some school districts during the academic year, these laptops don’t need to be returned. “I can’t think of a better way, to be quite honest, to invest government funding than on our kids,” Monocchio said. “This pandemic has really magnified the discrepancies that we see in this country and this county. And it’s not acceptable.”

Things got technical at the Supreme Court as the justices heard arguments from Google and Oracle in a blockbuster copyright dispute that has captivated Silicon Valley for a decade. The dispute concerns about 11,500 lines of code that Google used to build its popular Android mobile operating system, which were replicated from the Java application programming interface developed by Sun Microsystems. Oracle, which acquired Sun in 2010, sued Google shortly afterward, arguing that Google’s use of the code violates its ownership rights. Google, on the other hand, has said the code it copied was purely functional, and that its own engineers authored all of Android’s code that could be said to be creative and subject to copyright protection. At the end of an hour and a half of arguments, Justice Stephen Breyer, who at one point read aloud some code, seemed to be the only sure vote. The liberal justice appeared to lean toward Google. Several of the other justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, suggested they were sympathetic to Oracle’s copyright claims. Still, they appeared reluctant to rule in Oracle’s favor.