Texas

The Texas Broadband Development Office placed a temporary hold on August 12 on all disbursements of billions of dollars in federal funds related to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-TX) and House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-TX) called for an audit of the Texas Broadband Development Office after the office faced allegations of favoring satellite companies when it came to distributing more than $5 billion in state and federal dollars. In a joint statement, the lawmakers said concerns were raised during a Senate hearing about the award process.

Texas’ Democratic candidate for attorney general says, if elected, he would investigate whether SpaceX got preferential treatment in receiving $109 million in state broadband grants. The remarks by Nathan Johnson, a state senator, come after the state revised its broadband grant process following the Trump administration’s restructuring of a $42.45 billion federal broadband expansion initiative. 

The Supreme Court allowed a Texas law prohibiting minors from downloading apps without their parent's consent to go into effect. Multiple organizations had sued the state, arguing that the law violates children's freedom of speech. But in an unsigned, unexplained order, the high court allowed Texas to enforce the law as lawsuits continue in lower courts.

The Texas office responsible for distributing over $5 billion in state and federal money to expand rural broadband faced allegations of “favoritism” and offering “sweetheart” deals at a recent hearing of the state Senate’s Business and Commerce Committee. At the June 24 hearing, lawmakers suggested the Texas Broadband Development Office was changing rules and giving special treatment to companies that offer broadband via low earth orbit satellites. According to testimony, some of those changes came at the suggestion of the office of Gov. Greg Abbott.

Astound Vice President of Regulatory Broadband and Community Relations Fred Maldonado said Astound had submitted 33 Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program applications in Texas, designed to form a single, contiguous fiber route extending from the company’s existing network into more than 30 counties. The state ultimately awarded only five of those applications, leaving Astound with counties sitting far from its existing footprint. “It regrettably became impossible to justify the expense to build to these counties,” Maldonado said. Oregon presented a similar problem.

Finding sustainable, low-cost ways to care for the elderly population is a problem Texas is all too familiar with and Japan, home to the world’s largest over-65 population at 36 million, is beating Texas in solving. Chronic workforce shortages along with rising costs to care for a growing older population have prompted Japan—from companies to local governments—to heavily invest in technology to make it easier for family members to remotely monitor the elderly.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has transformed his office into one of the nation’s most aggressive litigators against Big Tech, suing companies including Meta, Netflix, WhatsApp and Discord, and building a dedicated privacy-enforcement operation. Now, a Democrat running to replace him says that’s one part of his legacy worth preserving. “There’s so many things I would condemn Paxton’s tenure as attorney general for,” said Texas state Sen.

In Caldwell County (TX), some residents are still struggling to keep up in an increasingly digital world. With broadband access lagging behind neighboring metro counties, older residents in particular are feeling the strain. Now, the Martindale Community Library is stepping in to help close that gap.

Astound Broadband walked away from about $165 million in federal broadband funding in Texas. The company said it did so because only part of its application was approved. An Astound spokesperson said that the company had submitted 33 applications during the state’s Broadband Equity, Access , and Deployment program bidding.