The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $23 million for three recipients in New Mexico to provide broadband service in unserved and underserved rural areas. These investments are part of USDA’s round one investments made through the ReConnect Pilot Program. 

• Pueblo of Acoma will invest a $942,955 grant to help provide fixed wireless broadband. Currently, the area completely lacks sufficient access to broadband service. Providing broadband will fuel long-term economic development and job opportunities in the service area, which includes 771 households spread over 22 square miles in Cibola County.
• Penasco Valley Telephone Cooperative Inc. will use a $3.1 million grant to deploy a fiber broadband network. The service area includes 659 households spread over 363 square miles in Lincoln, Otero, Chaves, and Eddy counties.
• ENMR Telephone Cooperative will use a $19.2 million grant to help build a fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network serving farms, businesses and critical community facilities in rural areas in New Mexico. The service area includes 789 households and three critical community facilities spread over 13 counties and 4,292 square miles.

Arden Hills (MN) member-owned agricultural cooperative Land O'Lakes has started offering free Wi-Fi to various rural communities across the country that might not otherwise have access. It’s an initiative Land O’Lakes has been talking about for awhile, according to Chief Technology Officer Teddy Bekele. And with everyone shifting to life online during the COVID-19 crisis, the digital divide in rural communities has been further exacerbated. “We decided we needed to do something immediately and one of the easiest steps we could take was to turn the guest Wi-Fi on at our locations so people could come to the parking lot and use it there,” Bekele said. “We have also encouraged a lot of our ag retailers to do the same.” Land O’Lakes and the rest of its network is now offering free Wi-Fi at about 120 locations spanning 14 states. That number will likely increase in the coming weeks.

CenturyLink's slow broadband deployment, already a problem before the pandemic, has gotten even slower as the public health crisis causes cities and towns to halt construction. Since 2015, CenturyLink has received $505.7 million each year from the US government's Connect America Fund to deploy Internet service to nearly 1.2 million homes and businesses in 33 states. CenturyLink was required to complete 80 percent of that deployment by the end of 2019 but recently told the Federal Communications Commission that it did not meet the end-of-2019 deadline in 23 of the 33 states. CenturyLink still has not met the end-of-2019 deadline in those 23 states. CenturyLink was thus already likely to have trouble meeting the end-of-2020 deadline for completing 100 percent of the government-subsidized construction. Pandemic-related restrictions on construction have slowed CenturyLink down further, and the company asked the FCC to extend deployment deadlines. Industry trade group USTelecom also asked for an FCC extension.

Electric cooperatives have given hope to the rural broadband market, and Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation (BRMEMC), in the broadband industry for more than 17 years, has earned the right to call itself a pioneer in that emerging space. Several electric co-ops in the Southeast have contacted BRMEMC for advice about how to deploy a broadband network. BRMEMC, founded in 1938, is a member-owned electric cooperative headquartered in Young Harris, Georgia, serving more than 53,000 member-customers. The provider currently offers electric and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband services to Fannin, Towns and Union counties in northern Georgia and in Clay and Cherokee counties in western North Carolina. BRMEMC’s broadband journey is far from typical. Unlike other co-ops that installed fiber to satisfy supervisory control and data acquisition requirements for the electric grid, BRMEMC’s broadband move was based on a simple principle: supply service in places that have none.

Business closures and stay-at-home orders have hit the real-estate sector hard. But an obscure corner of the industry is benefiting from people staying at home. Fiber-optic cables are drawing a growing interest from investors. These cables, which transmit data through light and are a crucial component of high-speed internet, aren’t technically real estate. But they are often owned by property investment firms and leased out to users under long-term deals, much like office or retail space. The Internal Revenue Service treats income from leasing out cables as property income, which has allowed publicly traded real-estate investments trusts to build up sizeable portfolios.

Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai requesting that the FCC use C-band auction funds to purchase satellites from US manufacturers to support American workers and families. “Given that U.S. taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for these assets—assets that are already owned by the taxpayer—it makes good sense to require an investment in the American industrial base. In order to ensure that these funds are used most effectively in supporting US economic growth and a continuity of service—especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic—I urge the FCC to institute a ‘Buy American’ request to all satellite operators,” he continued.

Foreign satellite operators, which have been using American airwaves at no cost, originally promised to purchase satellites from American manufacturers as they transitioned to using a different part of the spectrum. However, these foreign operators are now planning to invest in launch vehicles, ground equipment and satellites produced by foreign manufacturers, meaning that American taxpayers are being forced to invest in foreign producers.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau approved an additional 26 funding applications for the COVID-19 Telehealth Program. Health care providers in both urban and rural areas of the country will use this $11.19 million in funding to provide telehealth services during the coronavirus pandemic. To date, the FCC’s COVID-19 Telehealth Program, which was authorized by the CARES Act, has funded 56 health care providers in 23 states for a total of $24.9 million in funding.

1. Ampala Health, in Yuba City, California, with 12 sites throughout Northern California was awarded $332,079 to expand its video telehealth services using connected devices at COVID-19 testing centers to limit both patient and provider exposure.
2. Avenue 360 Health and Wellness, in Houston, Texas, was awarded $297,975 to provide video telemedicine services to low-income and vulnerable patients at risk for COVID-19 through mobile telehealth sites at public housing locations in the city of Houston and throughout Harris County.
3. Brazos Valley Community Action Agency, Inc. dba HealthPoint, in College Station, Texas, was awarded $415,621 to provide remote patient monitoring devices and services for its rural, vulnerable, high-risk patient population.
4. The Children’s Home of Cincinnati, in Cincinnati, Ohio, was awarded $456,871 to expand its video telehealth consultations and remote monitoring programs serving its low-income and vulnerable patient population throughout the Greater Cincinnati area that has been displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
5. Chinatown Service Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center with locations in Los Angeles, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, and Alhambra, California, was awarded $460,572 to implement telehealth to continue providing primary care, mental health, and dental services to low-income and vulnerable patient populations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
6. Community Health Centers of Burlington, in Burlington, Vermont, was awarded $782,903 for its eight sites to provide telehealth visits through the use of connected devices designed to serve community residents, primarily low-income patients, who face barriers to access comprehensive primary care, psychiatry, behavioral health, and dental care services.
7. Community Health Center of Lubbock, Inc., in Lubbock, Texas, was awarded $143,584 to expand its telehealth services to mitigate and limit exposure of patients and staff to COVID-19-positive patients receiving care while continuing to provide care to its vulnerable patients, including the elderly and chronically ill.
8. Delaware Valley Community Health, Inc., in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was awarded $504,880 to provide telehealth services to its patients who are predominantly vulnerable and at high-risk for COVID-19.
9. El Rio Santa Cruz Neighborhood Health Center, Inc., dba El Rio Health, in Tucson, Arizona, with 12 sites throughout the community was awarded $444,462 to provide video telehealth services and remote patient monitoring of chronic diseases to ensure continued care for high-risk patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
10. Fair Haven Community Health Clinic, in New Haven, Connecticut, was awarded $430,438 to provide its COVID-19 high-risk and vulnerable patient population with video and voice consults, and management of chronic conditions through patient-based Internet-connected remote monitoring.
11. Greater Baden Medical Services, Inc., in Brandywine, Maryland, was awarded $537,747 to expand its video telehealth services and remote patient monitoring to continue to provide care to its low-income patients outside of emergency rooms overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.
12. Health Access for All, Inc., dba Angeles Community Health Center, in Los Angeles, California, was awarded $442,376 to implement remote patient monitoring to care for patients who are most susceptible to COVID-19, including chronically ill and elderly patients.
13. Holyoke Health Center, Inc., in Holyoke, Massachusetts, was awarded $668,335 to use telehealth to provide its high-risk and vulnerable patients with HIV infectious disease services and management, substance use disorder program treatment and adherence counseling, and nutrition, medication management, and oral health services, thereby reserving staff, equipment, and other onsite supplies specifically for patients with COVID-19 symptoms and conditions.
14. Kennedy Krieger Children’s Hospital, Inc., in Baltimore, Maryland, was awarded $994,950 to expand its video telehealth and remote patient monitoring services to continue to provide care to vulnerable and high-risk children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities.
15. Linn County Department of Health Services, in Albany, Oregon, was awarded $56,332 to implement telehealth services to provide medical services, mental health services, and maternal health services to its community, a third of which lives in rural and remote areas.
16. MA FQHC Telehealth Consortium in Boston, Massachusetts, made up of 28 community health centers, was awarded $939,627 to maximize the health center providers and patients with access to telehealth via phone calls and videoconferencing, and use connected thermometers and pulse oximeters for remote monitoring of COVID-19 patients and connected blood pressure monitors for the monitoring of patients with hypertension.
17. Matagorda Episcopal Health Outreach in Bay City, Texas, was awarded $193,038 to provide telehealth services to treat patients with COVID-19 as well other infectious disease, including patients needing psychiatric services and other patients who have acute and chronic conditions.
18. Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, New York, was awarded $862,950, to provide remote patient monitoring services to pediatric patients suffering from at least one preexisting, chronic condition, such as asthma, cardiac disease, diabetes, or immunocompromise, who are dependent on ongoing monitoring of their condition to ensure that they remain in reasonable health.
19. Navajo Nation Department of Health, in Window Rock, Arizona, was awarded $954,990 to provide home health care and remote monitoring services throughout the Navajo Nation to patients who are isolated and under shelter-in-place orders, including low-income, elderly and vulnerable and high-risk patients.
20. Opportunities Industrialization Center, Inc., dba OIC Family Medical Center, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, was awarded $27,468 to expand its remote patient care program to provide connected devices to patients infected by COVID-19 or highrisk patients suffering from chronic conditions.
21. Parker Health Group in Somerset, New Jersey, was awarded $28,838 to provide physical, occupational, and speech therapy through telehealth for elderly members of the community.
22. Pomona Community Health Center, in Pomona, California, was awarded $209,933 to implement video and telephonic visits to provide medical, dental and behavioral health services to its COVID-19 high-risk and vulnerable community members who are either afraid to access services due to the risk of being infected or who have been advised to “stay at home” due to multiple at-risk health conditions.
23. South Plains Rural Health Services, Inc., in Levelland, Texas, was awarded $109,365 to expand its telehealth services to provide continued care to COVID-19 patients as well as its vulnerable, low-income, uninsured and under-insured patients.
24. Spectrum Health Services, Inc., in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was awarded $40,417 to implement telehealth services to allow providers to continue to care for its vulnerable patient population, which it characterized as the most impoverished patient base in Philadelphia.
25. Wilmington Community Clinic with sites in Los Angeles, California and Wilmington, California, was awarded $232,291 to provide remote patient monitoring, video, and voice telehealth consultations to low-income and vulnerable patient populations in Los Angeles County, which has been heavily impacted by the COVID19 pandemic.
26. Wright Center Medical Group, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was awarded $629,051 to deploy in-home patient monitoring kits and expand its video telehealth services to provide remote care to its high-risk and vulnerable populations, including older adults, homeless individuals, and individuals in rural areas.

Facebook is testing a new app to expand internet access in developing countries. The app, called Discover, provides users with a balance of free browsing data provided by several mobile partners. Facebook is running the first trial in Peru, but it plans to launch in a number of other countries in the future, including Thailand, the Philippines, and Iraq. Users will receive free data from their provider each day and will get a notification when it’s available. Discover only provides low-bandwidth browsing — so you can load text on a website but not video, audio, or other data-intensive elements. (If you want to stream, you can purchase additional data to do so.) You don’t need a Facebook account to use Discover. Facebook also claims that the app doesn’t collect users’ browsing histories “in connection with them” and does not store their activity to target Facebook ads. Discover appears to be a take two of Facebook’s Free Basics initiative, which aimed to provide internet access (and, perhaps, Facebook access) to regions with low connectivity.

Relations between the US and China, strained for years, have deteriorated at a rapid clip in recent months, leaving the two nations with fewer shared interests and a growing list of conflicts. The Trump administration has moved to involve much of the US government in a campaign that includes investigations, prosecutions and export restrictions. Nearly every cabinet and cabinet-level official either has adopted adversarial positions or jettisoned past cooperative programs with Beijing, an analysis of their policies showed. Independent agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission also took action. The FCC has begun substantially curtailing Chinese access to US telecommunications infrastructure. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has posted to Twitter articles about China actions he dislikes, tagging each with a sarcastic “You don’t say.” He said that one of his Twitter followers is the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr. Zhao, but “I don’t follow him back because I don’t want him sliding into my direct messages.”

International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have launched an accelerated action plan to better leverage digital technologies and infrastructure in support of citizens, governments and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the plan is to put forward immediate priority areas for private-public collaboration that can be taken by governments in partnership with the private sector.  The action plan comes out of a high-level virtual roundtable held recently with finance and information and communication technology (ICT) ministers, ICT regulators, CEOs of telecom and technology companies from around the world. Together, the group agreed that private-public sector collaboration will be essential to respond to the crisis to ensure networks are well-equipped to handle an exponential increase in digital traffic, help countries future-proof their digital capabilities and infrastructure, and ensure access to digital services for the most vulnerable populations.