Politico

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo redoubles her call for the Biden administration to develop a national spectrum strategy in remarks before the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)'s annual Spectrum Symposium. Putting together such a strategy was a priority for former President Donald Trump, but one that was never fully developed.

Shawn Bone, a senior telecommunications counsel for Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA), is joining Verizon on October 11 as its director of federal regulatory public policy. Bone, who has worked for Senate Commerce Democrats for more than nine years, will focus on broadband at Verizon.

Government officials, tech lobbyists, civil rights advocates and researchers participated in POLITICO’s inaugural tech summit: “At a Digital Crossroads: Washington and Silicon Valley.” Key takeaways include:

Duane Stanley, an official with the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office, is the latest to sound the alarm about a wireless industry plan to sunset its legacy 3G network in the coming months.

Acting Federal Communications Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said she’s pleased that the Senate infrastructure deal would codify the pandemic relief program known as the Emergency Broadband Benefit — but she is wary about one provision that would slash the monthly internet subsidy by 40 percent. “I do think it would be challenging for the agency to reduce the support from $50 a month to $30 a month,” she said.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission left the door open to taking further actions to ensure everyone has broadband access — including price regulation and combating digital redlining. Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at Politico's Tech Summit that the FCC is “laser-like focused on getting this service to everyone, everywhere,” and that it is trying to take a broader approach to the issue than the agency had in the past.