The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it has awarded 19 grants as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. The grants, totaling nearly $77 million, are being awarded in 10 states – Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Washington. They will fund internet use and adoption projects to improve healthcare, workforce development, education, housing, and social services in tribal communities. For example, the Gila River Indian Community (AZ) grant will assist in telehealth expansion, distance learning opportunities and digital inclusion efforts. More information on these awards is provided here. NTIA has now made a total of 34 awards totaling about $83 million in funding through the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. These awards are part of the Biden Administration’s whole-of-government effort to connect everyone in America with affordable, reliable, high-speed internet.

In 2018, Congress provided funding to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to create a National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) and to work with Federal Communications Commissionas well as state and local governments, nonprofits, network owners and operators and other stakeholders to achieve this goal. So far, 40 states and territories have provided data to NTIA. But much of this data is from resident surveys or requests for service collected via web portals, says William Rinehart, a senior research fellow at Utah State University’s Center for Growth and Opportunity. It might be more than was previously known, but it’s still missing important details; moreover, the data is not available to researchers. One state took a more comprehensive approach to tracking coverage and shared its data set. Rinehart used this work as the basis for a national projection. In June 2021, the state of Georgia published a broadband availability map created by overlapping the location of every home and business in the state with broadband service available to those locations. The work of creating the map was overseen by the Institute of Government at the University of Georgia. The map, the first of its kind, revealed coverage gaps that were not apparent in FCC data.

The Federal Communications Commission committed nearly $39 million in the 14th wave of Emergency Connectivity Fund program support, helping to close the Homework Gap. This latest round of funding is supporting 140 schools, 14 libraries, and 1 consortium across the country, including for students in California, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Puerto Rico, and Virginia. 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 have funded over 10 million connected devices and 5 million broadband connections. To date, the Commission has approved over $4.8 billion in program funding commitments.

May 13, 2022 is the last day for schools and libraries to apply for support to purchase eligible equipment and services for the 2022-2023 school year through a third application window. In this window, the FCC anticipates awarding at least $1 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund program support. This window likely will be the last opportunity for schools and libraries to request funding before available funds in the $7.17 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund program are exhausted.

Lobbying groups representing broadband internet access service providers—including ACA Connects, NCTA, CTIA and USTelecom—dropped their challenge of a federal district court's ruling upholding California's net neutrality law. The ISPs had already lost a federal district court challenge to the law and two appeals court efforts to block enforcement. The suit was dismissed without prejudice, which means ISPs could refile it if they chose. California adopted the prohibitions on blocking, throttling and paid prioritization after the Federal Communications Commission eliminated its similar net neutrality rules and reclassified internet access as a Title I information service under Chairman Ajit Pai.

"The ISPs threw in the towel today on their challenge to California’s net neutrality law," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counselor to the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, one of those defending the law before both the federal district court and the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. "Realizing that they could not successfully appeal the January 2022 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to the Supreme Court, the ISPs gave up. They were forced to accept what most observers had seen: in the wake of the Federal Communications Commission’s decision disclaiming interest in treating broadband access service as subject to federal regulation, the states were freed to adopt their own requirements. Several other states have adopted net neutrality requirements by statute or executive order. The reasoning of the 9th Circuit court allows those provisions to remain in effect as well. The end of this litigation is a boon for free speech, competition and innovation on the internet."

News of AT&T’s wireless price hike stole recent headlines, but the operator also quietly unveiled a price increase for certain fixed broadband subscribers. In a notice posted to its customer support website, AT&T said monthly rates for AT&T Internet customers are going up $3 per month. The document is dated May 2, 2022. The jump is half the $6 price increase AT&T just implemented for customers on some of its older wireless plans. An AT&T representative said its nearly 6.3 million fiber customers won’t be impacted by the change. “Like others in the industry, we adjust prices and fees to address costs and the demands of the business,” the representative stated. Recon Analytics founder Roger Entner said AT&T Internet (formerly known as U-verse) is one of four broadband products the operator offers, the others being fiber, fixed wireless access and legacy DSL. He described it as essentially a “fiber to the curb” service. According to its website, speeds for AT&T Internet plans range from 25 Mbps to 100 Mbps. As of the end of Q1 2022, AT&T had nearly 7.6 million non-fiber internet customers, though it did not provide a breakdown of how many were AT&T Internet versus DSL or fixed wireless. The bump follows a $2 per month price increase for DSL customers announced in January.