John Eggerton

Associations representing cable, telecom and wireless internet service providers (ISPs) have teamed up to ask the Federal Communications Commission to create a safe harbor for companies that want to enroll eligible consumers in the new Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) subsidy before the FCC has figured out just how to transition from the COVID-19-driven Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) subsidy to ACP under rules not yet hammered out.

The Federal Communications Commission is considering putting new restrictions on wireless use of C-Band spectrum, including a nationwide power reduction, as the Biden Administration works on how best to free up that spectrum for 5G without risking interference to critical aviation communications. Wireless deployments in the band were delayed from fall 2021 given concerns by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but are now scheduled to launch January 5, 2022.

Gigi Sohn, President Biden's nominee for the Federal Communications Commission, told Sen.

Internet service providers (ISPs) are telling the Federal Communications Commission not to require ISPs to allow broadband subsidy recipients to apply those subsidies to grandfathered plans, arguing that it would be burdensome and confusing, though they also said they should be free to apply the subsidies to select grandfathered plans.

Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] could be running into more Republican and industry headwinds in the Biden administration's effort to get a Democratic majority on the agency.

Vice President Kamala Harris talked up the broadband benefits of the recently passed bipartisan infrastructure package, which included $65 billion for broadband buildouts and adoption. Harris was tapped by President Biden early on to be his point person on the goal of universal internet access.

Cable broadband provider Charter told the Federal Communications Commission that discriminatory access to utility poles threatens the ability of broadband providers to close the digital divide, one of the Biden Administration's goals and one it has promised the new infrastructure bill's broadband subsidy billions will make a reality.

Diversity groups urged the Federal Communications Commission to start now to bake equity into 6G wireless. In a November 8 letter to FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, the groups, led by Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council (MMTC) and including Rainbow PUSH, the NAACP and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, asked that the FCC take these five steps to ensure the delivery of affordable and accessible services to communities of color:

With little movement in the top markets and increases of only tens of millions of dollars per round in the rest of the country, the Federal Communications Commission is looking to get bidders in the 3.45-GHz midband spectrum auction off the sidelines and move toward the finish line. By round 85, the auction had raised $21,426,504,290 in gross bids. That is about 50 percent higher than the reserve price the FCC set of $14.775 billion to make sure the auction covers the price of relocating federal users of the 100 MHz of the band the Department of Defense agreed to share.

Comcast wants the Federal Communications Commission to clarify that it can continue its Lift Zone pilot project beyond the 2022 expiration of a waiver it obtained from an E-rate program rule. The FCC agreed in October to let Comcast test expanding its Lift Zone diverse broadband access program from community centers so libraries that receive E-rate funding. It did so by extending its pandemic-related waiver of the prohibition on gifts from providers to E-rate school and library recipients until June 30, 2022.