With the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Challenge Process largely complete in each of the 50 states, most states have released datasets listing which locations are eligible for funding following challenges from local governments, nonprofits, and internet service providers. Given the rigorous nature of these challenge processes, the data provides the most complete, accurate, and granular look to date of broadband availability across the country. The Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute has aggregated challenge process results for 46 states to count remaining unserved and underserved locations (data from the remaining 4 states—NJ, NC, OH, TX—is not yet publicly available). We then used those data to calculate average funding per eligible BEAD location that was available to states at the beginning of the BEAD program and how much that amount has increased as the number of eligible locations has decreased. The ACLP’s analysis shows a near-ubiquitous decrease in eligible locations when compared to the latest Federal Communications Commission data and to FCC data used by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to calculate BEAD funding allocations. Across these 46 states, the total number of BEAD-eligible locations has decreased by 57 percent. 

1. Given these significant and ongoing changes to the contours of the digital divide, are there adequate procedures in place to ensure that BEAD funds are not used to support widescale overbuilding?
2. With a narrower digital divide, has the role of LEO satellite in BEAD changed?
3. The data appear to indicate that there is a higher likelihood that more states will have BEAD funding leftover after addressing remaining eligible locations. What should be done with those funds?

Rep Kat Cammack (R-FL) introduced the App Store Freedom Act, which seeks to promote competition and protect consumers and developers in the mobile app marketplace by prohibiting certain anticompetitive practices by dominant app store operators. The bill supports interoperability and consumer choice by requiring large app store operators (100 million+ U.S. users) to allow users to set third-party apps or app stores as default; install apps or app stores outside of the dominant platform; and remove or hide pre-installed apps. Additionally, the bill directs companies to provide developers equal access to interfaces, features, and development tools without cost or discrimination. 

Public Knowledge joined 16 other public interest, consumer rights, and library groups in a letter urging Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson to protect consumers in the digital marketplace by establishing clear ground rules for digital ownership and sales of goods. The groups argue that “ownership must mean something in the digital age” and that “if a transaction does not include the essential rights of preservation, use, and transfer, it should not be marketed or labeled as a sale.” The letter asks Chairman Ferguson to provide “definitional clarity” to bring honesty and transparency to the digital marketplace—and to restore consumer trust.

You’ve probably heard of smart cities, where a lot of public infrastructure, such as traffic lights, is connected to the internet. But have you heard of smart towns? A few small broadband providers have banded together in a Smart Town Alliance to bring a form of community Wi-Fi to their rural communities, and they’re hoping to create a trend where many small broadband providers join their initiative. The members of the Smart Town Alliance give their broadband customers a way to access the internet via their mobile devices, outside of their homes. And if these subscribers happen to visit the footprint of other Smart Town Alliance members, the community Wi-Fi will work there, as well. The Smart Town Alliance was begun in the fall of 2024 by the vendor Calix to help small broadband providers offer community Wi-Fi as a value-add for their customers. Currently, there are a handful of service providers participating in the Smart Town Alliance, including SC Telecom (KS), Jade Communications (CO), French Broad EMC (NC), and Tombigbee Fiber (MS). 

The digital transformation of the auto industry has hit a speed bump: Slower-than-expected electric vehicle adoption has delayed the rollout of intelligent, software-defined vehicles. Automakers are forecasting billions of dollars in recurring revenue from software and services that improve over time through constant updates. Automakers dream of being more like Apple, with an elegant operating system like iOS that enables the same digital experience across all their vehicles. Tesla and other EV startups already have such platforms, and they regularly send software updates to add features or improve performance. But they had an advantage: Their modern cars were designed from scratch. Legacy automakers are saddled with complex software networks cobbled together from more than 100 electronic control units that manage specific functions like braking or infotainment. Even minor software updates are a hassle with such a fragmented system. The software conundrum demonstrates why a car is not a smartphone and Detroit will never be like Apple.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr could not have found a much more sympathetic interviewer than Ajit Pai, Chair of the FCC during the first Trump Administration. That left the conversation between the current and former FCC chairs at this week's CTIA 5G Summit 2025 devoid of fireworks, but it did cast a little light on Chairman Carr's policy priorities. His first goal is one that few voices in Congress publicly object to: securing a renewal of the FCC’s authority to auction wireless spectrum, which Congress let expire in March 2023. He suggested that commercializing the upper reaches of the C-band, the subject of an FCC inquiry opened in February, "would be a really good win for the country if we can get that done." And yet Congress has now spent two years and change punting on opportunities to renew that authority, which Congress first granted to the commission in the analog-cell-phone days of 1993. 

I’ve regularly heard that U.S. broadband prices are a lot higher than European prices. I found a way to check this when I ran across this article from ISPreview that has a long list of gigabit broadband prices across the UK. The article includes the listed prices for 41 British internet service providers for 2022, 2023, and the current 2025 prices. The prices in the article include the value-added tax, which is administered the same as a sales tax. The VAT on broadband in the UK is 20%, so the ISPs only collect 80% of the prices shown, with the 20% going to the government. The average list price for the UK ISPs in 2025 is £50.9, which is $67.70 in current dollars. Because of the VAT, ISPs only collect the equivalent of $56.42 today. How do the UK list prices compare to U.S. list gigabit prices in 2025? Large U.S. ISPs have an average monthly list price rate of $93.87 in 2025. Many of these ISPs have far lower promotional rates for new subscribers, but it’s still eye-opening to compare the average list price in the U.S. of $93.97 to the average list price in the UK of $67.70, which is only $56.42 after removing the VAT tax. British gigabit list prices are 40% less expensive than U.S. gigabit broadband.