The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) announced a multi-year, $10 million grant from Google.org to create a National Digital Navigator Corps. The Corps will span 18 rural and tribal communities across the United States and impact thousands of people through one-on-one technology training and community outreach to connect people to the internet, appropriate devices, and training. NDIA will launch a public process in spring 2022 to identify 18 established community organizations – such as social service agencies, libraries, and health clinics – and fund the creation of digital navigator programs. In addition to establishing the National Digital Navigator Corps, the grant funding and program will:

• Further formalize NDIA’s digital navigator model, which has been developed and defined by NDIA and practitioners across the country at more than 20 digital navigator programs
• Establish a data collection system with sites to measure people served, their confidence online, and digital skill growth over time
• Support digital navigator programs at Tribal sites in partnership with AMERIND, which provides solutions for Tribal broadband deployment
• Create publicly available digital navigator assets like trainings, templates, and outreach tools which will allow fellow digital inclusion organizations to expand and scale their community impact. 

Vodafone is working with US-based AST SpaceMobile to plan a satellite strategy so that customers in remote locations can use their existing mobile devices to access voice and data services. Vodafone has 300 million mobile subscribers across Europe and Africa, along with 28 million fixed broadband customers. Vodafone's Chief Technology Officer Johan Wibergh said that the company has invested in and partnered with AST SpaceMobile with the aim of closing vast coverage gaps using a planned network of satellites. “The great innovation with AST SpaceMobile is that your phone will automatically discover the satellite, and your phone will automatically connect to the satellite, and you will be connected to the internet,” said Wibergh. Vodafone has almost 200,000 cell towers across its coverage area. But it’s struggled to provide service to rural areas with rough terrain and no electricity grid. The carrier started talking to AST SpaceMobile in 2018 about the possibility of bridging the digital divide with satellites.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is completely enmeshed in our daily lives, a network of connected laptops, phones, cars, fitness trackers—even smart toasters and refrigerators—that are increasingly able to make decisions on their own. But how to ensure that these devices benefit us, rather than exploit us or put us at risk? New work, led by Francine Berman at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, proposes a novel framework, the “impact universe,” that can help policymakers keep the public interest in focus amidst the rush to adopt ever-new digital technology. “How,” asks Berman, Stuart Rice Honorary Chair and Research Professor in UMass Amherst’s Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS), “can we ensure that technology works for us, rather than the other way around?” Berman, lead author of a new paper recently published in the journal Patterns, and her co-authors sketch out what they call the “impact universe”—a way for policymakers and others to think “holistically about the potential impacts of societal controls for systems and devices in the IoT”.

The Ad Hoc Telecom Users Committee, INCOMPAS, NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association, Public Knowledge, the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition, and the Voice on the Net Coalition, as well 332 entities representing a broad and diverse group of stakeholders submitted this letter to the Federal Communications Commission to take immediate action to reform and stabilize the funding mechanism that supports the Universal Service Fund (USF). The “Call to Action” letter urges the FCC to expand the services that pay into the USF to include broadband internet access services (BIAS). Stabilizing the USF is not a new issue, but what has made reform urgent is the increased (and continuing) instability of the funding mechanism at a time when broadband access has never been more important. Promoting the deployment, sustainability, and affordability of communications networks and services is how we help connect rural and low-income consumers, schools, libraries, and rural health care providers. In addition, expanding the current revenues-based system to include BIAS mitigates gamesmanship and promotes transparency by removing incentives of providers to arbitrarily allocate revenues from bundled services to one service and not the other. Lastly, there is significant and diverse support for the Commission to act fast to stabilize the USF. No proposed solution for USF reform will be perfect, but the FCC should not wait any longer.  It is time to modernize the USF contribution methodology and sustain the USF for the future.

On behalf of "America's Broadband Providers," USTelecom sent a letter to Biden Administration officials on how the administration can "make the most of America's $65 billion broadband investment." "Connecting every American, regardless of geography or income, will require unprecedented collaboration across the private and public sectors, spanning federal, state, Tribal and local governments," says the letter. "Getting the details right will ultimately make (or break) this work. What follows is a roadmap for how public decision makers, and their broadband partners, can make true, universal connectivity a reality for every person in every community across our country. The most important decision a community can make is to partner with experienced providers to ensure funds spent today will not only complete a network build, but continue to provide communities modern, reliable connectivity well into the future."

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced a new initiative to improve US government coordination on spectrum management. The Spectrum Coordination Initiative will involve actions by both agencies to strengthen the processes for decision making and information sharing and to work cooperatively to resolve spectrum policy issues. Specifically, the FCC Chairwoman and the NTIA Assistant Secretary have committed to the following initial actions:

• Reinstate High-Level Meetings.  For the first time, the Chair of the FCC and the Assistant Secretary will hold formal, regular meetings, beginning monthly, to conduct joint spectrum planning.
• Reaffirm Roles and Responsibilities.  The FCC and NTIA will update the nearly twenty-year-old Memorandum of Understanding between the agencies to address gaps in government coordination and to better reflect today’s spectrum opportunities and challenges.
• Renew Efforts to Develop a National Spectrum Strategy.  The FCC and NTIA will collaborate to help inform the development of a national spectrum strategy, increase transparency around spectrum use and needs, and establish long-term spectrum planning and coordination. 
• Recommit to Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking.  The FCC and NTIA will work cooperatively to develop processes for spectrum engineering compatibility analysis.
• Revamp Technical Collaboration.  The FCC and NTIA will foster proactive technical exchange and engagement with industry and other federal agencies by participating in cross-agency advisory groups.

The nation’s eighth-largest cable operator, Breezeline, upgraded residential internet speeds on January 14th, doubling the speeds for many customers without any additional charges in select packages. The speed increases were delivered automatically to more than 125,000 customers based on their internet package. The faster speeds are also available to new customers. As a result of the move, Breezeline has boosted the speed of tiers with 50 Mbps Internet to 100 Mbps, and 100 Mbps Internet to 200 Mbps. Breezeline’s 400 Mbps Internet is now 500 Mbps. With these faster and more powerful speeds, residents can now simultaneously work from home, stream and game online, with greatly enhanced performance and reliability, the company said. Breezeline offers residential speeds up to 1Gbps. Breezeline internet customers enjoy unlimited data, regardless of the speed they choose, the cable operator said.