From where I stand, changing direction on Connexion now would be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The biggest problem with Connexion, the city of Fort Collins' (CO) broadband service, is that the deployment wasn't further along before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Demand for Connexion has risen dramatically since COVID. With demand comes revenue with a short delay while they hook folks up.

Internet is no longer a luxury, it's now a necessity like water, sewer and power. The incumbents have been very slow to react to that and have continued to price internet access as a premium service: Note their price decreases since Connexion. The system is designed with the future in mind. The fiber infrastructure will easily handle 10 Gbps to account for demands of the future.

[Phil Jensen lives in Fort Collins]

The US is set to get another satellite broadband provider that uses a non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) approach. The Federal Communications Commission has approved market access to OneWeb, a NGSO satellite broadband operator that filed for bankruptcy earlier in 2020 but is back in action after receiving an investment from the British government. NGSO operators use constellations of satellites that orbit the earth at lower altitudes in comparison with traditional geostationary satellites. The NGSO approach is designed to minimize latency by minimizing the distance that broadband signals must travel.

Like their geostationary counterparts, the NGSO operators are expected to have the greatest success in rural areas that lack high-speed terrestrial-based broadband options. The highest-profile NGSO projects are SpaceX’s Starlink offering and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, but several other NGSO operators also have been approved to operate in the US Starlink has made considerable progress on its offering, conducting trials and even considering participation in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund rural broadband funding auction.

Concerned parents and activists gathered in front of Chicago's Englewood neighborhood Comcast branch demanding that the federal government ensure internet access for all children as classrooms nationwide prepare to go virtual. Activists in several cities, including Chicago, Washington D.C., and Oakland participated in #InternetForAll’s national call for action, calling on the Federal Communications Commission and the US Department of Education to address the estimated 15 million students “logged out” across the country. While Comcast has rolled out a program to bridge the digital divide for low-income Chicago Public School students, families with delinquent Comcast accounts are ineligible, a restriction activists Tanesha Peeples and Nailah Stevenson find deplorable. “It’s like punishing the children for whatever was going on with the parents,” said Stevenson, a CPS parent whose son is starting second grade next month. “The kids have nothing to do with the account the parents may have had. They need the internet.” “We’re focusing on the federal level because the FCC has control over all of the services. We want to cut out the middle man and get to the boss,” said Peeples, herself a CPS alum. “Fifteen million students don’t have internet access, and that’s a violation of their right to a public education.”

 Although 90 percent of Colorado city and suburban districts have high levels of broadband connectivity, only a quarter of the 112 rural districts have high levels of connectivity, and many have low or very low levels, according to an analysis by the Regional Educational Laboratory Central at Centennial-based Marzano Research. 94 percent of the 28,200 students within Mesa County Valley School district have broadband internet (speeds greater than 25 megabits per second). But across the state on the far eastern plains, only 18 percent of the 61 students in the Plainview School District have broadband. It’s not just a rural problem. Low-income neighborhoods such as Denver’s Montbello and Green Valley Ranch have spotty coverage and many students are trying to use their phones as hotspots.

“It’s frustrating,” said Toby Melster, superintendent of the Centennial School District in San Luis, Colorado. He estimates about 30 percent of his students are falling behind simply because they don’t have a high-quality internet connection. He said companies have donated some hotspots but because there are multiple people in a family who need to go online, “they’ve got to make a decision about who gets access to the hotspot.”

As the Republican National Convention kicked off, the Trump campaign touted 5G among the president’s second-term goals, specifically stating he would “win the race to 5G and establish a national high-speed wireless internet network.”  This phrasing is a head-scratcher given the Trump orbit’s past flirtations with nationalizing 5G, an approach taking multiple forms over the years and deeply opposed by many at the Federal Communications Commission and on Capitol Hill. President Donald Trump and other top administration officials have previously swatted down prospects of government intervention in the 5G marketplace, instead favoring a market-led approach.

But some Trump confidants still maintain he needs to juice up the 5G marketplace. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had previously lobbied President Trump in favor of a scenario in which the administration takes Pentagon airwaves and gives them to a 5G wholesaler aimed at more efficiently doling them out to the wireless market. His allies included campaign official Brad Parscale and Karl Rove, who lobbies for wireless firm Rivada. Gingrich said that although he felt defeated at the time, he hoped to raise 5G intervention with President Trump again in 2020 and said it would be an election winner. “It gives him a way to say to rural America, here’s how I’m going to get you a dramatic breakthrough in the quality of life and the economic growth, and here’s how I’m going to get America a dramatic victory over the Chinese,” Gingrich said. He dismissed Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who opposes a heavier government role, as "the chief spokesman in the White House for the forces of reaction who don’t want to change anything."

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and his colleagues, however, haven’t shown interest in pursuing a government-led effort along these lines. “If a company wants to buy spectrum through an auction and use it to run a wholesale network, it’s free to do so,” Chairman Pai’s office said earlier this year when asked about Gingrich’s comments. “But there is no reason that the government should mandate that particular business model.”