The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Report and Order and Further Notice that provides detailed guidance for the Affordable Connectivity Program, a $14.2 billion federal initiative that offers qualifying households discounts on their internet service bills and an opportunity to receive a discount on a computer or tablet from participating providers. The Affordable Connectivity Program will provide eligible households with discounts of up to $30 a month for broadband service, and up to $75 a month if the household is on Tribal lands. It also will provide a one-time discount of up to $100 on a computer or tablet for eligible households. Under the law, the Affordable Connectivity Program is open to households that meet one of the following criteria: have incomes at or below 200% of federal poverty guidelines; participate in certain assistance programs, such as Lifeline, Medicaid, SNAP, federal public housing assistance, WIC, or SSI, Tribal specific programs such as Bureau of Indian Affairs General Assistance, Tribal TANF, or Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations; households with kids receiving free and reduced-price lunch or school breakfast; Pell grant recipients; or if they meet eligibility criteria for a participating provider’s existing low-income program.

Communities across the United States have gotten an unexpected gift from the Biden Administration in the form of additional flexibility to use American Rescue Plan funds for needed broadband investments, particularly those focused on low-income neighborhoods in urban areas. When Congress developed and passed the American Rescue Plan Act, it tasked the Treasury Department with writing the rules for some key programs, including the State & Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). That program is distributing $350 billion to local and state governments, which can use it for a variety of purposes that include broadband infrastructure and digital inclusion efforts. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) breaks down how local governments have wide latitude to use SLFRF funds for a variety of needed broadband infrastructure investments, especially to resolve affordability challenges. ILSR covers some key points in the Final Rule with references to the text in the hopes that it will help communities better understand their options and share key passages with their advisers and attorneys. 

When it comes to expanding broadband access, states have a lot on their plate right now. In the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, American Rescue Plan Act, and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Congress appropriated tens of billions of dollars for universal broadband access and affordability, giving states the lion’s share of responsibility in deciding where and how to spend the funds. Now, states must establish new mechanisms for undertaking the many tasks necessary to do so. However, there is an additional, urgent item states should add to their to-do list: enable low-income residents to afford broadband by advocating for a sustainable framework for the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program. If the FCC fails to create such a framework in the coming months, states may be forced to come up with their own funding—which would likely be a fiscal, political, and administrative nightmare. While states will take responsibility for spending federal dollars to bridge the access divide, the federal government has the responsibility for assuring that all can afford basic broadband services.

[Blair Levin is a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Metro.]

Fiber-optic cable, which carries 95 percent of the world’s international internet traffic, links up pretty much all of the world’s data centers, those vast server warehouses where the computing happens that transforms all those 1s and 0s into our experience of the internet. Where those fiber-optic connections link up countries across the oceans, they consist almost entirely of cables running underwater—some 1.3 million kilometers (or more than 800,000 miles) of bundled glass threads that make up the actual, physical international internet. And until recently, the overwhelming majority of the undersea fiber-optic cable being installed was controlled and used by telecommunications companies and governments. Today, that’s no longer the case. In less than a decade, four tech giants— Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Meta (formerly Facebook ) and Amazon —have become by far the dominant users of undersea-cable capacity. In the next three years, they are on track to become primary financiers and owners of the web of undersea internet cables connecting the richest and most bandwidth-hungry countries on the shores of both the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The chief executives of major passenger and cargo airlines said there could be significant flight disruptions when new 5G service goes live in the US, unless implementation of the wireless service within 2 miles of major airport runways is delayed. The outlook had worsened for flight disruptions from the planned rollout of new high-speed wireless services, the airline executives said in a letter to US officials. The executives asked that officials “take whatever action necessary to ensure that 5G is deployed except when towers are too close to airport runways until the FAA can determine how that can be safely accomplished without catastrophic disruption.” The letter was addressed to several Biden administration officials including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Federal Aviation Administration head Steve Dickson. “Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and shipping public will essentially be grounded,” wrote the chief executives of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and others.

In the Hamilton County Schools district (which includes Chattanooga), roughly a third of the district’s 45,000 students did not have home access to stable internet. When COVID forced schools online, one in three students could not attend virtual class. Within days of COVID pushing schools to remote learning, Chattanooga leaders implemented an emergency solution: installing 98 Quick Connect hotspots providing residents with free high-speed internet. The hotspots were located in church and restaurant parking lots, outside community centers, laundromats, public housing courtyards, and other public gathering spots. While the hotspot solution provided students with the opportunity to download assignments — and offered broader community access — it was not a viable method for sustaining full-day, interactive learning. HCS EdConnect is a program that delivers high-speed internet to low-income public school students across Hamilton County at no cost to their families. This is done primarily by installing new routers and wiring in eligible families’ homes and then waiving all fees for ongoing service. Without EdConnect, thousands of families would not have been able to provide a stable enough internet connection for their children to participate in virtual learning during the pandemic. EdConnect looks beyond the pandemic, too, making a 10-year commitment to families in need (as long as a student is enrolled in the district). Through November 2021,15,368 students in 8,522 households had received in-home internet connections at no cost through EdConnect.

The Federal Communications Commission alongside the Department of Labor, Department of Education, and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced the members of a cross-agency working group that will collaborate to identify the current and future needs of the telecommunications industry workforce, including the safety of that workforce. In accordance with the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appointed five members, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh appointed four members, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona appointed two members, and Evelyn Remaley, performing the non-exclusive functions and duties of the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, appointed one member to the new interagency working group. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directed the FCC Chair to work in partnership with the Secretary of Labor to establish an interagency working group that will ultimately prepare a report to Congress on its recommendations to address the needs of the telecommunications industry, including the safety of its workforce. This report must be delivered to Congress by January 14, 2023. [follow link below to see members of the working group]

Comcast's hiring of a new lobbyist is part of an attempt to "torpedo" President Joe Biden's nomination of Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to the Federal Communications Commission, according to advocacy group Free Press. "Comcast just hired a lobbying firm to try to torpedo Gigi Sohn's nomination to the FCC," said Free Press. "The company clearly knows that Sohn will work for people, not corporations." The organization also asked people to call Commerce Committee Chair Sen Maria Cantwell (D–WA) to urge a vote on Sohn's nomination by the end of January. Comcast's newly hired lobbyist is Kirk Adams of Consilium Consulting in Phoenix (AZ). Adams' lobbying disclosure, which was filed with Congress on January 6, lists one specific lobbying issue that he expects to work on: "FCC nominations." An amended version of the lobbying registration filed about 11 hours later deleted "FCC Nominations" and replaced it with "telecommunications policy."