Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a racial reckoning has taken place in our country that has forced public and private institutions — including the media — to acknowledge their histories of racism. Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Yvette Clarke and Brenda Lawrence authored a letter to the Federal Communications Commission signed by 22 more of of their congressional colleagues that calls on the agency to conduct an equity audit to “address and redress the harm the agency’s policies and programs have caused Black and brown communities and identify the affirmative steps the agency commits to taking to break down barriers to just media and telecommunication practices.” We join these congressional leaders in calling on the FCC to investigate its own history of anti-Black racism in the policies it has adopted. We also call on the Commission to issue a Notice of Inquiry and identify reparative actions it will take to redress the structural racism that exists in our media system due to those FCC policies.

FCC policy decisions — and inaction — in regards to its internet policies have resulted in a digital divide where Black, Latinx and Indigenous households are far less likely to have adequate home-broadband services than white ones. 14 This means exacerbated harm for Black, Latinx and Indigenous families. As the pandemic has made plain — and as you have acknowledged on many occasions — this divide has dramatically worsened our nation’s racial inequities and has had particularly cruel impacts on our children.

California's net neutrality law could pave the way for conflicting broadband regulations in all 50 states, a lawyer for the cable industry argued to a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. “The question before this court is whether interstate broadband service will continue to be governed by a single, national set of rules, or instead will for the first time face a patchwork of conflicting state regulation,” attorney Scott Angstreich, who represents broadband lobbying groups, told the appellate judges. “If California were correct, interstate broadband providers could have to apply up to 50 different sets of rules when carrying the same Netflix shows, or Zoom calls, or national news, to their customers in different states.” But Patti Li, who defended the California law, countered that the state law prevents broadband providers from discriminating against content providers they disagree with, or charging them fees for reaching internet users. “No one can doubt the central importance of fair and open access to the internet in this day and age, during a global pandemic that has pushed so many activities online, and in the midst of so many climate events and wildfires, when immediate access to information can be a mater of life or death.” She added that states don't need prior federal approval to pass consumer protection laws, “especially when it comes to a basic necessity like access to the internet.”

The United States must act aggressively to meet two core broadband challenges. One is to ensure that all Americans have affordable access to the Internet at levels sufficient to enable them to participate fully in modern life. The other is to ensure that all of America’s communities obtain the advanced communications capabilities they will need to survive and thrive in the increasingly competitive global economy. Broadband partnerships can play a vital role in meeting both of these challenges, especially by taking advantage of the substantial federal and state funds that are becoming available for these purposes. Recognizing the benefits of advanced communications capabilities, hundreds of communities—perhaps thousands— are exploring their options, including working with willing incumbents or new entrants, developing their own networks, creating regional consortia, or pursuing other creative alternatives. As many are realizing, a partnership of some kind may be their best choice, and perhaps even their only feasible one. With sizable federal and state funding now available and significantly more in the pipeline, partnerships are likely to become an even more attractive option. In this article, we examine the pros and cons of broadband partnerships, the key legal and regulatory considerations involved, the steps that local governments should take—and the questions they should ask—in analyzing, planning, and negotiating partnerships.

Billions in federal funding have been made available to expand broadband access since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) CEO Claude Aiken argued some of that money is being wasted on wireline rollouts in areas already covered by fixed wireless access service. As noted by Pew Charitable Trusts, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of March 2020 handed states $150 billion in funding which could, among other things, be used to extend broadband connectivity. The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) followed a year later, making another $350 billion available, and the congressional infrastructure bill is expected to provide an additional $65 billion. According to Aiken, guidance issued by the Treasury Department about how states should use those funds to expand broadband access essentially ignores the presence of fixed wireless access networks. That, he said, has led to fears of overbuilding and wasteful spending. In July 2021, UTOPIA fiber argued the term overbuilding is bandied about by incumbent providers to make new competition sound like a bad thing. Aiken said that’s not quite the case here; as an example, he noted one WISPA member who serves rural Nebraska with a fixed wireless service offering speeds of 200 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps upstream. But since fixed wireless isn’t counted when determining whether or not an area is served, the state decided to fund fiber within that WISPA member’s service area.

The Federal Trade Commission voted to approve and make public a series of resolutions that will enable agency staff to efficiently and expeditiously investigate conduct in core FTC priority areas over the next ten years. Streamlining and improving efficiency at the agency is vitally important given the increased volume of investigatory work created by the surge in merger filings. Having already doubled between 2010 and 2020, the number of mergers filed with the antitrust authorities this year hit a record-setting pace of 2,067 acquisitions for the first seven months alone.  With these resolutions in place, the FTC can better utilize its limited resources and move forward in earnest to quickly investigate potential misconduct. The Bureaus recommended that the Commission authorize eight new compulsory process resolutions in these essential areas:

1. Acts or Practices Affecting United States Armed Forces Service Members and Veterans;
2. Acts or Practices Affecting Children;
3. Bias in Algorithms and Biometrics;
4. Deceptive and Manipulative Conduct on the Internet;
5. Repair Restrictions;
6. Abuse of Intellectual Property;
7. Common Directors and Officers and Common Ownership; and
8. Monopolization Offenses.

Comcast Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh reported that subscriber additions for Comcast’s cable business—which consists of the Xfinity-branded broadband, pay-TV, landline and mobile phone units—slowed at the end of August 2021, and lags behind the same period in 2019 before the pandemic. Cable peers, such as Charter Communications, Altice USA and Cable One, also experienced stock share-price selloffs. During the height of stay-at-home pandemic orders at the beginning of 2020, companies such as Comcast and Charter added record numbers of broadband customers as people relied on home broadband for work and learning. That growth has continued through recent quarters; during the second quarter, Comcast added 354,000 customers compared with 323,000 in the previous year. The company told investors in July 2021 it expected total broadband net additions for the year to have a percentage growth in the midteens from the 1.4 million net additions in 2019. On September 14, Cavanagh said that expectation hasn’t changed for the full year.