State broadband offices have been incredibly busy for, well, years now. At this point, nearly all states and territories have submitted their Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program final proposals to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for review. While they did that, state broadband offices were also advancing their own broadband deployment and digital inclusion initiatives. Some may be old, and some may be new, but all of the following state-run programs have hit the Headlines in recent weeks for their efforts to help close the digital divide.

ACA Connects, the industry group representing small and midsize cable and broadband providers, is hoping to use a Federal Communications Commission proceeding to secure reforms on permitting and rate regulation, issues the group sees as prohibitive to its members. The FCC in September opened a notice of inquiry on "Eliminating barriers to wireline deployment," seeking industry input on how the Commission can use its authority under section 253 of the Communications Act to preempt state and local laws that "have a prohibitive effect on wireline telecommunications deployments and services." The group's priorities, as summarized by ACA's Brian Hurley, senior vice president of legal and regulatory affairs, include streamlining permitting and public rights of way, broadband price regulation (as in, laws like New York's Affordable Broadband Act) and enforcement.

Even better than Stella getting her groove back, the Federal Communications Commission got its spectrum auction authority back thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And with it, an obligation to auction at least 800 MHz of spectrum within eight years, with a minimum of 100 MHz (but likely more) of Upper C-band spectrum auctioned by July 4, 2027. Congress provided the blueprint—now it’s up to us (government and industry working together) to get the job done. This is a big deal. The entire digital infrastructure ecosystem—towers, small cells, cloud and edge data centers, fiber backhaul, and AI workloads—depends on having access to the right spectrum at the right time. Two things are needed for the U.S. to keep pace. First, block size—the US must allocate spectrum in large, contiguous blocks that truly move the capacity needle. And second, speed to market—make new spectrum available quickly and predictably to meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s applications. There is still a lot of important work to be done to free up this spectrum. The deployment of 6G is expected to start by the end of the decade, and the U.S. mobile industry will need access to at least 600 MHz by then just to keep pace globally. 

Andrew C. Barrett, Rachelle B. Chong, Ervin S. Duggan, Mark S. Fowler, Dennis R. Patrick, Alfred C. Sikes, Thomas E. Wheeler, Christopher J. Wright, Kathryn C. Brown, Jerald N. Fritz, Peter Pitsch (the petitioners) request that the Federal Communications Commission repeal the news distortion policy in full. In Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, the Supreme Court, applying the First Amendment, reaffirmed that the government has no role in “un-biasing” the media. In direct contradiction to that decision, the news distortion policy seeks to mold the speech of private broadcasters to the FCC’s own view of what is correct, complete, and accurate news. The First Amendment forbids the government from embarking on such a project. Furthermore, the application of the news distortion policy is constitutionally problematic. The vast scope and vague language of the news distortion policy cast an omnipresent shadow over broadcasters’ freedom of expression while leaving the policy open to partisan weaponization. Wielding the news distortion policy, the FCC has already opened or threatened to open investigations against private broadcasters due to disagreements with editorial decisions or statements made in a comedic monologue. Even if the FCC never tries to take enforcement action in these cases, the specter of government interference alone chills broadcasters’ speech and suppresses their message. Because the FCC has no legitimate interest in correcting or punishing what it considers to be slanted news coverage, the news distortion policy lacks a meaningful function. Over a period of 60 years, the FCC only enforced the policy eight times, typically in cases involving an intentional hoax. However, such cases are now covered by the FCC’s broadcast hoax role, rendering the news distortion policy a vestigial organ. In light of its redundancy and obsolescence, as well as its actively harmful effects, amply demonstrated as of late, the petitioners respectfully request the repeal of the news distortion policy. 

After aggressively criticizing government censorship during the Biden administration, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr is getting sucked into his own free-speech imbroglio. Chairman Carr has come under bipartisan accusations that he invoked the news distortion rule—an obscure FCC policy against deliberate misrepresentations in broadcast journalism—as a way to threaten networks over a controversial Jimmy Kimmel monologue, and a “60 Minutes” interview of Kamala Harris. The Senate is yanking him into an oversight hearing in December, during which Democrats, at least, are expected to call him on the carpet. The whole thing has become such a mess that a group of FCC veterans—dominated by former Republican commissioners—now want to do away with the agency’s news distortion policy altogether. In an FCC petition, the group proffers an intriguing proposal: The agency should repeal its news distortion rule, and just rely on the one that prohibits broadcast hoaxes instead.