The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau, in conjunction with the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force and the Office of Economics and Analytics, authorized Auction 903 support for the six winning bids by Velocity.Net Communications in Pennsylvania.

The technology gap has prompted teachers to upload lessons on flash drives and send them home to dozens of students every other week. Some children spend school nights crashing at more-connected relatives’ homes so they can get online for classes the next day. Millions of American students are grappling with these challenges, learning remotely without adequate home internet service. Even as school districts have scrambled to provide students with laptops, many who live in low-income and rural communities continue to have difficulty logging on. About 15 million K-12 students lived in households without adequate online connectivity in 2018, according to a study of federal data by Common Sense Media, an education nonprofit group that tracks children’s media use. Before the coronavirus, that was mainly an obstacle for students doing homework, and it was an issue that state and federal officials struggled to address. But the pandemic turned the lack of internet connectivity into a nationwide emergency: Suddenly, millions of schoolchildren were cut off from digital learning, unable to maintain virtual “attendance” and marooned socially from their classmates. The Trump administration has done little to expand broadband access for students, both before and during the pandemic, said James Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media. “There was no federal strategy, and it was left to the individual states to come up with a patchwork of solutions,” he said.

The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission said antitrust enforcers need to be worried about dominant companies buying startups that are emerging competitive threats -- highlighting one of the main issues in the agency’s investigation of Facebook. Chairman Joe Simons said that takeovers of nascent competitors can be harmful to consumers and said that enforcers need to be ready to step in to stop such deals. “A monopolist can squash a nascent competitor by buying it, not just by targeting it with anti-competitive actions,” Chairman Simons said at an American Bar Association conference. “It may be easier and more effective to buy the nascent threat, only if to keep it out of the hands of others.” “We must be willing and able to recognize that harm to competition might not be as obvious from a look at the marketplace as it stands currently,” said Chairman Simons. If officials only consider a “static picture” of a market, “then we risk forfeiting the benefits of competition that could arise in the future.”

President Donald Trump is pushing the Senate to confirm Nathan Simington, his hand-picked nominee for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission, but some don't expect him to get his wish. If Simington is confirmed first, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "may see the bigger picture — keeping the FCC at 2-2 is better for a conservative approach to regulatory policy than allowing the Democrats to hit the ground running with a 2-1 advantage," said former Pai aide Nathan Leamer, now vice president at public affairs firm Targeted Victory. Senate Majority Leader McConnell could also easily slow-walk the process of filling the third Democratic seat should his party hold the chamber following January run-off elections in Georgia. Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) "looks forward to working with Mr. Simington and hopes he will be swiftly confirmed," applauding Simington's "fresh, new, and important perspective" on using the FCC to narrow the reach of tech platforms' liability shield, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Observers argue Majority Leader McConnell is unlikely to view confirming Simington as a great use of the time the Senate has left this year. Meanwhile, Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said he would put a hold on Simington's nomination — slowing down its progress — unless Simington commits to recusing himself from FCC deliberations relating to President Trump's executive order, since he was involved in implementing it. The bottom line: "The Senate Majority Leader has been very clear he wants to get more judges through — is jamming up the FCC really a priority for Republicans?" said former FCC adviser and Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate Gigi Sohn.