Just as COVID-19 has made the Internet a necessity for the vast majority of Americans, it has impacted the short- and long-term plans of state broadband initiatives: 

• The Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) and KCST, the operator of Massachusetts’ 1,200 middle-mile network, launched a new Wi-Fi hot spot program in late April. The program is setting up free Wi-Fi hot spots at public institutions — libraries, police stations, and so on — within 23 unserved communities. The program is intended to help citizens who don’t have fast Internet in their homes right now, but the state wants to measure the demand for the hot spots and see what it can learn for the future.
• Teresa Ferguson, director of federal broadband engagement for the Colorado Broadband Office, said a major focus for Colorado is maintaining its “COVID-19 Broadband Resources and Updates” Web page. Colorado has existing middle- and last-mile broadband grant programs, but the current crisis has made it difficult to predict how the programs will be maintained in the near future.    
• Stanley Adams, director of broadband initiatives for the Kansas Department of Commerce, said Kansas was about to stand up its first broadband grant program before COVID-19 disrupted the activities of the Kansas Legislature. Still, he said there’s a greater urgency among stakeholders in Kansas to gather data and identify broadband gaps. Adams is seeing much more interagency cooperation in the state, and some local communities have collaborated with service providers to develop short-term solutions for citizens’ connectivity needs.   

An FCC auction of the T-band is a bad idea. But as of today, the law mandates that we do it. It’s unfortunate that Commission resources must be dedicated to laying the groundwork for an auction that will likely fail. This is especially true at a time when we are making every effort to keep Americans safe and connected, including allowing expanded temporary use of this very spectrum to help first responders save lives. Fortunately, there is bipartisan legislation in Congress to repeal this mandate, including bills that couple repeal with 911 fee diversion reform as reported out by the [Senate Commerce Committee] and the [House Communications Subcommittee]. I hope legislation passes soon so first responders who rely on this spectrum no longer need to worry about a potential loss of or significant disruption to their mission-critical radio systems. I remain committed to helping Congress in any way I can to ensure that such harms to public safety operations do not come to pass.

[The T-band auction mandate is a requirement of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. On May 15, Chairman Pai circulated a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which would take the next statutorily required step to implement this mandate.]

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced plans to protect US national security by restricting Huawei’s ability to use US technology and software to design and manufacture its semiconductors abroad. This announcement cuts off Huawei’s efforts to undermine US export controls. BIS is amending its longstanding foreign-produced direct product rule and the Entity List to narrowly and strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain US software and technology.