Adoption

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau granted twenty additional 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses to serve Alaskan Native communities. To date, 292 applications received through 2020’s FCC Rural Tribal Priority Window have been granted, paving the way for new advanced wireless services – including wireless broadband – for underserved rural Tribal communities. In Alaska, 99 applications have now been granted.

Charter Communications scaled back its forecast for broadband net addition growth in the full year 2021 after posting a significant slowdown in subscriber gains in Q3. The company gained 265,000 internet customers across the two segments in Q3 2021, raising its year-to-date total to 1.02 million. The Q3 figure marked a significant year-on-year drop from 537,000 in Q3 2020 and sequential slide from 400,000 net adds in Q2.

Access to reliable connectivity causes a divide between youth who have access and those who do not. Currently, 35 percent of low-income households lack any access to broadband service at home. This leads to an issue known as the “homework gap” among students who lack proper internet access. To close this gap, UScellular has launched the After School Access Project, a program that provides free mobile hotspots and service to nonprofits that support youth after the school day has ended and provides safe internet access for homework and education.

A new startup backed by funding from AOL founder Steve Case and Laurene Powell Jobs wants to break up broadband monopolies across the country. Underline, a community infrastructure company, began building its first open access fiber network in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in October 2021. Under the open access model, Underline builds and operates the fiber network while multiple service providers can use it and offer service to customers.

The state of broadband in the US’s farmlands is a mixture of the good, the bad, and the apprehensive. The good: successes and advancements brought on by broadband and various digital technologies. The bad: many farms still have to rely on pitifully weak technologies such as satellite and DSL. The cloud of apprehension: we spend $6 billion in broadband grants yearly with surprisingly little to show for it, and yet we’re ready to do it again next year.

With the release of a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) has made important changes for Round 3 of its ReConnect Program. RUS has included a preference for local governments, non-profits, and cooperatives as applicants and added additional points to those applications. Further, RUS is expanding eligible areas beyond the FCC’s 25/3 definition of broadband.

Comcast raked in 300,000 broadband net additions in Q3 2021, a figure that was less than half the number it added in 2020 and lower than the pre-pandemic gain it posted in the comparable period of 2019. The operator added 633,000 subscribers during the pandemic in Q3 2020 and 379,000 broadband customers in Q3 2019. Comcast CFO Michael Cavanagh previously warned that the operator expected net additions to slow in Q3.

The National Spectrum Consortium, made up of hundreds of companies with a vested interest in freeing up more wireless spectrum, has launched an effort to work with the government to do just that. The consortium has launched the “Partnering to Advance Trusted and Holistic Spectrum Solutions (PATHSS) Task Group,” whose goal is to collaborate with the Department of Defense to find more midband to share.

Located on the shores of Lake Erie, Cleveland suffers from the highest rates of child poverty and the lowest rates of broadband access among the large cities in the United States.

Austin (TX) for years has been one of the nation's most desirable tech hubs. Yet despite this, some of Austin's most vulnerable populations still lack digital literacy, internet access and digital exposure. City officials said the demand for digital devices in Austin continues to surpass the number of devices available. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic and natural disasters such as the February freeze, which caused widespread power outages across the state, have exposed digital access gaps in the Austin area.