The Department of Commerce released its Equity Action Plan for ensuring its programming and policies reach a larger and more diverse audience. In addition to the Department’s Fiscal Year 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, the Equity Action Plan outlines how Commerce will use its programs and tools to:

• Close the digital divide
• Ensure community development dollars advance racial equity and support underserved communities
• Grow Minority Business Enterprises (MBE)
• Strengthen small businesses in underserved communities by helping them be successful exporters
• Increase access to the patent and trademark systems for inventors and entrepreneurs from historically underserved communities
• Make Department of Commerce science and data more findable, accessible, and usable

Despite the prevalence of online, hybrid and HyFlex classes in higher education, course accessibility is far from equal across student bodies. Even at larger, wealthier institutions like Indiana University Bloomington and The Ohio State University, a significant number of students lack the technological access necessary to fully participate. With a third of low-income students and 25 percent of all students battling unreliable internet access, evidence of this trend can be seen throughout the country. Access to campus computer labs isn’t always possible, especially for off-campus students. Higher education is home to a substantial and worrisome digital equity gap, a digital divide in desperate need of a bridge. “Our colleagues that are working in rural spaces, our colleagues that are working at tribal colleges, indigenous communities — the divide in broadband access is prohibitive,” says Mordecai Ian Brownlee, president of the Community College of Aurora. “Programs that would truly promote social and economic mobility are hindered and prevented due to the lack of infrastructure in these various communities.” Brownlee goes on to say he believes this digital equity gap represents a lack of focus on national infrastructure. “What are we doing to ensure these communities are receiving the access that they need? The access equates to opportunity.”

Alan Davidson, head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, said his agency is taking a customer service approach to overseeing the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) initiative going to the states for broadband buildout. Each state will have a point person at NTIA to make sure stakeholders know how to apply for the money, Davidson said. Davidson signaled that while the Biden administration has emphasized fiber, states will have the flexibility to use the money as they choose, as long as it is put toward the goal of getting broadband to the unserved and underserved. “We expect there will be flexibility,” he said. “Different states are going to run programs in different ways.” The statute gives states that flexibility, he said, so it is not a one-size-fits-all program. Connect Americans Now Executive Director Richard Cullen praised Davidson, stating, “Connect Americans Now commends Administrator Davidson for reaffirming NTIA’s commitment to ensuring states and broadband providers have the flexibility needed to maximize the positive impact, reach and cost-effectiveness of deployments targeted at eliminating the digital divide."

The bipartisan infrastructure bill appears to transform how the federal government subsidizes broadband infrastructure. But evidence suggests that big companies may not allow the status quo to change without a fight. In a break from the past, the majority of new broadband infrastructure money won’t be distributed by the Federal Communications Commission, which tended to award grants to the biggest companies. This time, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will distribute the funds through the states as part of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Peggy Schaffer, executive director of the ConnectMaine Authority, said BEAD shifts the broadband conversation toward the consumer and state economic development, which has caused “a lot of angst on part of the industry who have never worked with the states before, who have maintained a monopolistic view of their network and controlled their network.” “This is the first time Congress has stopped and said, ‘You know, what we had been doing through the FCC and others — giving money to big companies who can get their stuff together and bid — is not working. It is time to have a new strategy,’” Schaffer remarked. Schaffer also shared a strictly pragmatic view when it comes to BEAD applications. As much as anyone may or may not like the new status quo with federal broadband dollars, it’s up to each organization to adapt.

On April 12, Dish Network sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Secretary Marlene Dortch urging the Commission to reconsider its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) award to SpaceX's Starlink. Dish said, "SpaceX cannot credibly claim that it will be able to fulfill its obligations under the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction rules." The company included four studies in the letter that it states show SpaceX would violate the conditions for using the 12 GHz band for RDOF. The letter concludes, "SpaceX can have no confidence that it can use the 12 GHz band to fulfill its RDOF obligations, and the Commission should deny its petition for designation as an eligible telecommunications carrier to the extent it is based on the 12 GHz band."

The last two years or so have seen a slew of broadband providers rename either themselves or their services. Some are even using a brand name as though it was a company, issuing press releases that scarcely reference the official corporate identity, instead using only the brand name as the protagonist. In the latter category is Windstream, which routinely issues press releases under the Kinetic name. Charter, which announced the Spectrum brand back in 2014, more recently has adopted the same approach in its press releases. Why all the new brands and corporate identities? “Some brands are switching away from being a geographically parochial brand like Cincinnati Bell to become something broader like Altafiber,” said Lorenzo Coruzzi, associate director at Brand Finance. That logic also could explain why Atlantic Broadband became Breezeline. Never was the saying “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard” more pertinent in the broadband business. With that in mind, telecompetitor created just such a scorecard.