Federal

In this Order on Reconsideration, the Federal Communications Commission address several petitions for reconsideration (PFRs) of the Enhanced A-CAM Order, which established the Enhanced Alternative Connect America Cost Model (Enhanced A-CAM) program as a voluntary path for supporting broadband deployment of at least 100/20 Mbps throughout the rural areas served by carriers that previously received A-CAM support and in areas served by legacy rate-of-return support recipients.  Among other requests, Petitioners encouraged the FCC to extend the Enhanced A-CAM Program’s deployment milestones by

Criticism is mounting against the 5G Fund, a long-gestating US government program that would distribute billions of dollars to wireless network operators with the goal of funding the construction of 5G networks in rural areas. Indeed, the issues are so lengthy and complex that T-Mobile has suggested just ending the program altogether.

Dizzied by an accumulated pileup of busted norms, you might have missed a presidential executive order issued on March 20. It’s called, “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos.” It basically gives the federal government the authority to consolidate all the unclassified materials from different government databases.

The Federal Communications Commission voted in 2024 to launch the 5G Fund for Rural America to expand 5G coverage into the many parts of the country with poor cell coverage. It may turn out that market forces might mean that some of that subsidy won’t be needed since the big carriers are expanding into rural areas. A recent blog from Ookla documents the rural expansion of 5G.

On March 12, 2025, Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the Ranking Member of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote to the acting chiefs of the Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement and Media Bureaus seeking answers to seven questions about FCC Chairman Brendan Carr orders to reopen complaints against and investigations into media broadcasters. On March 26, Chairman Carr replied noting that "During the Biden Administration, the FCC and Democrats across government repeatedly weaponized our country’s communications laws and processes.

The Federal government took a range of steps to expedite the adoption and awareness of telehealth. Some of the telehealth flexibilities have been made permanent while others are temporary. Telehealth policies allow:

Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Mark Warner (D-VA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Peter Welch (D-VT), and John Barrasso (R-WY) led a bipartisan group of 60 senators in reintroducing the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act. The CONNECT for Health Act will expand coverage of telehealth services through Medicare, make COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities permanent, improve health outcomes, and make it easier for patients to connect with their doctors.

The Texas Broadband Development Office (BDO), under the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, developed the Texas Digital Opportunity Plan to complement broadband infrastructure programs already underway in the state, including the Bringing Online Opportunities to Texas (BOOT) program and the state’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Texas has not yet received its federal State Digital Equity Capacity funding and—on March 4, 2025—BDO paused all grants and contracts to implement the Texas Digital Opportunity Plan.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and its Media/Telecommunications Task Force co-chairs, UnidosUS and United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, wrote to the chair and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee demanding that they delay the confirmation hearing for Olivia Trusty to serve as a Federal Communications Commissioner until the administration provides a binding commitment that it will keep the FCC fully staffed with five commissioners, two of whom must be Democrats.

The South Carolina Broadband Office (SCBBO) announced that broadband deployment is continuing at a rapid pace and, while construction is still underway statewide, only 28,724 Broadband Serviceable Locations (BSLs) remain unserved or underserved and lack an investment commitment. Of the remaining BSLs, 21,466 are residential, 5,469 are business, and 1,789 are Community Anchor Institutions. These totals represent 1.1% and 2.9% of the statewide residential and business BSLs, respectively.