As a country we have a very short memory when it comes to broadband. Anybody in their late 40s or older clearly remembers twenty-five years ago when the predominant form of broadband was dial-up and we were seeing the first DSL and cable modem trials in the market. But I think most people have forgotten about the state of broadband just ten years ago. We’ve made extraordinary strides with broadband speeds in just ten years. Cable companies now routinely offer gigabit speeds and millions of new fiber passings are being built every year. Fixed wireless access cellular is bringing pockets of 100+ Mbps all around the country. New fixed wireless radios now have big bandwidth capabilities. I don’t think anybody in 2014 could have predicted where we are today with broadband.

I am pleased that the Supreme Court will review the Fifth Circuit’s misguided decision. For decades, there has been broad, bipartisan support for the Universal Service Fund and the FCC programs that help communications reach the most rural and least-connected households in the United States, as well as hospitals, schools, and libraries nationwide. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will overturn the decision that put this vital system at risk.

Under your leadership, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has repeatedly ignored the text of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in administering the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. This past August, I sent you an inquiry regarding NTIA’s decision to hoard nearly $1 billion in BEAD funding to build a central planning bureaucracy that proceeded to impose extraneous mandates on the states and prevent the expeditious delivery of internet access to unserved communities. Instead of working to reverse course on the botched BEAD program, your agency responded by doubling down on its extralegal requirements and evading congressional inquiries. With anticipated new leadership at both NTIA and in Congress, the BEAD program will soon be ‘unburdened by what has been’ and states will no longer be subject to the unlawful and onerous bureaucratic obstacles imposed by the Biden-Harris NTIA. Congress will review the BEAD program early next year, with specific attention to NTIA’s extreme technology bias in defining “priority broadband projects” and “reliable broadband service”; imposition of statutorily-prohibited rate regulation; unionized workforce and DEI labor requirements; climate change assessments; excessive per-location costs; and other central planning mandates. In turn, states will be able to expand connectivity on terms that meet the real needs of their communities, without irrelevant requirements that tie up resources, create confusion, and slow deployment. It is incumbent on you to bear these upcoming changes in mind during this transition term. I therefore urge the NTIA to pause unlawful, extraneous BEAD activities and avoid locking states into in any final actions until you provide a detailed, transparent response to my original inquiry and take immediate, measurable steps to address these issues. I am enclosing a copy of NTIA’s letter to ensure full accountability for decisions that impact American connectivity.

To take full advantage of online local government services, healthcare and other resources, residents need robust connectivity capabilities—which still aren’t available in some areas of the U.S. An established fiber backbone can enable a fast, reliable connection; yet while 91 percent of state and local leaders said their agencies would benefit from modernizing IT infrastructure in a recent EY survey, only 40 percent identified it as a top priority. Connectivity-related upgrades may seem particularly out of reach for sparsely populated areas and smaller cities. Fiber providers’ deployment efforts have traditionally focused on denser regions where better returns can be realized, due to lower costs per location. The expense involved in installing fiber, for instance, can be beyond the scope of local governments’ budgets. Other funding sources, however, may be an option, including federal grants, says Curtiss Strietelmeier, public sector funding manager at CDW. 

With a new presidential administration soon upon us, a panel of broadband operators was asked what policy changes they’d most like to see. Leigh Fox, CEO at altafiber, gave a point-blank answer: “Permitting needs to be addressed.” From his perspective, it’s the one thing slowing down broadband deployments, and municipal permitting is “getting tougher and tougher,” he said. Five to ten years ago, a joint use agreement would take around 6-8 months to set up, said Fox. Now, that process can take “18-24 plus months.” Fox wasn’t the only one with permitting gripes. Harold Zeitz, CEO at Ziply Fiber, said in some of the towns Ziply operates in, they only let the company have one permit open at a time. Not only does that elongate the build process, but it makes it more expensive for both Ziply and the municipality.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a rule to supervise the largest nonbank companies offering digital funds transfer and payment wallet apps. The rule will help the CFPB to ensure that these companies—specifically those handling more than 50 million transactions per year—follow federal law just like large banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions already supervised by the CFPB. The CFPB estimates that the most widely used apps covered by the rule collectively process over 13 billion consumer payment transactions annually. The final rule will enable to the CFPB to supervise companies in key areas including:

• Privacy and surveillance
• Errors and fraud
• Debanking

Left-leaning apps, news websites and social networks are experiencing a spike in engagement following President-elect Trump's election win, further dividing the internet along political lines. It's not unusual for resistance media to rise in response to contentious elections. But the internet itself is becoming more politically divided than ever, driving Americans further into echo chambers. Bluesky, an alternative to Elon Musk's X, saw downloads rise by 430% during election week. For platforms and media outlets looking to become more neutral, playing to everyone's interests may present business challenges. All signs point to online tribalism increasing as the barrier to entry for new digital products lowers, challenging mainstream institutions. 

“Americans, your calls and texts can be monitored by Chinese spies,” a Washington Post opinion piece recently headlined. China has “growing cyber-sophistication and relentless ambition to undermine U.S. infrastructure” another Post article reported. Some analyses trace the recent exploitation to a telecommunications network backdoor created early in the era of digital networks to allow for court-authorized wiretaps. When the digital wiretap law was passed in 1994, no one foresaw the kind of sophisticated intrusions apparently developed by the Chinese. It is an experience that we must remember as the design of digital network technology continues to evolve. The current cyberattacks are a clarion call that network security must be both a forethought in network design and an ongoing regulatory responsibility for the agency entrusted with oversight of the nation’s networks.