Wednesday, January 26, 2022
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FCC Commits Another $240 Million in Emergency Connectivity Funding
More states are taking broadband mapping into their own hands
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Broadband Infrastructure
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Education
The Federal Communications Commission announced that it is committing $240,888,016 in its eighth wave of Emergency Connectivity Fund program support. The funding commitments will support over 600,000 students and provide funding for 693 schools, 55 libraries and 8 consortia in 49 states, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the District of Columbia. The institutions are approved to receive nearly 683,000 connected devices and 182,000 broadband connections. Since its June 2021 launch, the program has committed over $4.4 billion in support. The funding can be used to support off-campus learning, such as nightly homework, to ensure students across the country have the necessary support to keep up with their education. Total commitments to date are supporting over 10,500 schools, 860 libraries, and nearly 120 consortia for nearly 9.6 million connected devices and nearly 4.9 million broadband connections. This announcement includes over $98 million in commitments from Window 1 applications and over $142 million in commitments from Window 2 applications.
NewsGuard, a service that uses trained journalists to rate news and information sites, will become available to millions of public school students at the end of January 2022 through a partnership with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Kids increasingly turn to the internet when looking for homework help or doing research for school projects. But unlike books in a library or articles in a journal, online resources can be difficult to filter for quality and misinformation. The AFT teachers union is buying NewsGuard licenses for its 1.7 million teachers, who will then be able to share it with tens of millions of students around the country. "We are constantly trying to help our students, particularly our middle, high school and post-secondary students, separate fact from fiction, as we help them develop their critical-thinking and analytical skills," AFT president Randi Weingarten says. The hope is that students with the skills to spot disinformation will grow into more thoughtful and better-informed citizens and voters.
With billions in federal broadband funding already in hand and more on the way, a significant number of states are looking to map internet coverage within their borders to get a better understanding of where help is needed according to LightBox CEO Eric Frank. LightBox provides a geospatial mapping service and was previously tapped by officials in Georgia and Alabama to help create detailed broadband coverage maps. Recently, Montana also selected LightBox to help it get a more accurate picture of the broadband landscape there. Frank said these states are far from alone in pursuing mapping initiatives, noting “at least a dozen” states have recently issued requests for proposals (RFPs) for such projects. He added LightBox has been having conversations with other states who haven’t quite made it to the RFP phase but are still gathering information on how best to approach mapping and other broadband issues. The push among the states comes as the Federal Communications Commission works to create new broadband coverage maps which will be used to help distribute billions in recently allocated federal broadband funding. The CEO added the interest from the states has sparked inbound inquiries from the telecommunications industry. In these cases, companies are looking for insights that can be used for marketing or strategy purposes, for instance to assess an addressable market or what their share of a market is.
The rapid and widespread deployment of radiofrequency (RF) devices has enabled the communications sector to drive innovation, promote economic growth, and become integral to nearly all aspects of modern life. The Federal Communications Commission’s equipment authorization program is one of the principal ways the agency ensures that the communications equipment people rely on every day, such as their cellphones and Wi-Fi devices, operate effectively without causing harmful interference and otherwise comply with the Commission’s rules. In this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FCC proposes targeted updates to its rules to incorporate four new and updated standards that are integral to the testing of equipment and accreditation of laboratories that test RF devices. RF devices are evolving more rapidly than ever before, and the FCC anticipates that this evolution will continue and even accelerate. Keeping abreast of significant developments in the standards-setting community enables our equipment authorization program to keep pace with this evolution and ensure that the devices being used every day continue to comply with our technical rules.
Verizon’s Fios internet net additions may have slowed year on year in Q4, but CEO Hans Vestberg said its total for the full-year 2021 was the highest in more than five years. The operator posted 106,000 total broadband net additions in the quarter, up from 76,000 in Q4 2020. That figure included 78,000 fixed wireless access (FWA) and 55,000 Fios Internet adds as well as the loss of 27,000 DSL customers. While the quarterly Fios figure was down significantly from 95,000 net additions in Q4 2020, full-year Fios Internet gains in 2021 totaled 360,000. Vestberg pointed to this tally as the company’s best annual result since 2014. Though analysts noted Verizon’s Fios figures for Q4 fell well short of expectations – given the consensus estimate called for 78,000 net additions – MoffettNathanson said the business “continues to show strength, a product of their focus on stand-alone broadband, more aggressive pricing, and a lessening drag from video as the video base shrinks.” Verizon will continue to expand its Fios footprint, adding the operator expects its fixed wireless product to open up new opportunities in the broadband segment particularly now that it has deployed C-Band spectrum it can use for the service.
The head of the National Urban League is calling on the Senate Commerce Committee to favorably report Democrat Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society]'s Federal Communications Commission nomination to the full Senate and to work actively for a vote in that body. According to the letter, which was addressed to committee chairwoman Sen Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and ranking member Sen Roger Wicker (R-MS), National Urban League president Marc Morial said Sohn would bring decades of experience to the task of closing the digital divide, which has only widened during COVID-19. The League has called on the FCC to tackle the divide through “broadband buildout, an affordable broadband and devices benefit, digital education, improved utilization of the internet for critical government services and increased opportunities for communities of color to benefit from the economic prosperity of this digital age.” Morial said Sohn has demonstrated a commitment to equity that will benefit communities of color and consumers in general. “[S]he has expressed interest in boosting media diversity and ownership, including through expansion of the broadcast incubator program beyond radio and via a reevaluation of the FCC’s minority ownership rules as part of its 2022 Quadrennial Review,” he said.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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Kevin Taglang
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Benton Institute
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