Individuals who primarily Reside in a Rural Area

We commend NDIA’s commitment and courage in bringing the case. This decision is a significant but incomplete victory for those of us committed to meaningful connectivity for all. Congress was right to recognize the historical disparities in access and adoption of critical connectivity tools—and to address these inequities with thoughtful planning and funding. We disagree with the court’s decision that considering the connectivity needs of racial or ethnic minorities constitutes an unconstitutional race-based classification.

On July 15, 2026, Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision that could revive a federal grant program the President declared dead more than a year ago. In National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) v. Trump (Civil Action No. 25-3606), the court held that the Digital Equity Act of 2021 contains an unconstitutional racial classification, but that this single flaw does not doom the law.

We analyzed the Federal Communications Commission's latest Serviceable Location Fabric (v9) and the latest Broadband Data Collection (BDC) data release (2025-12-31, which uses Fabric v8) to see how many locations awarded  Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funds for satellite service are either (1) no longer included in the Fabric as broadband-serviceable locations or (2) are already “served.” About 35 percent of locations awarded BEAD funds for satellite service are likely no longer in need (42% if unlicensed fixed wireless is included).

Every few years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tells Congress and the public what it intends to do with its authority. The agency's strategic plan is not a rulemaking and creates no legal obligations, but it is the framework around which the FCC builds its annual performance plan and budget request to Congress. The strategic plan also serves as the yardstick against which the agency's own annual performance reports—and outside overseers like the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)—measure whether the FCC did what it said it would do.

When the Blue Ridge Broadband Alliance (BRBA) launched in July 2025, momentum was not on its side. The previous five years had been a time of immense growth in the broadband and digital opportunity space. The COVID-19 pandemic thrust the digital divide into the spotlight, and stories of students doing homework in fast food parking lots made it clear that something needed to be done.

This paper argues that with fiber and gigabit cable now reaching most US locations, bandwidth is no longer the binding constraint on internet performance—latency is. The authors contend that latency is determined largely outside the last mile, by middle-mile fiber, peering density, and proximity to Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), so the massive public investment in last-mile deployment does little to address it. They distinguish AI training, which follows power supply, from AI inference, which follows network performance.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is adding its voice to those calling on the NTIA to release BEAD winners' performance testing results to the public, with a stated concern that "some providers" may not be able to meet their commitments. The labor union's request came in the form of a letter to Arielle Roth, NTIA chief administrator, dated Tuesday, July 14.

Players in the broadband industry are increasingly concerned about the impact that SpaceX’s Starlink could have on their businesses. Recently, New Street Research (NSR), working with Recon Analytics’ data, found that SpaceX’s Starlink continues to get close to half of its gross adds from small rural broadband providers and customers that are new to broadband. “New customers” refers to subscribers who say they have not had broadband in the past. NSR Analyst David Barden said, “So far, we haven’t seen any major impact on the wired broadband operators in the U.S.

Old copper landlines are going the way of so many other aging pieces of technology as smartphones have become the way many people surf the web, pay bills, watch movies and keep up with friends and family. But some residents of L.A. and California—particularly those who live in fire-prone areas—are determined to hold on to their traditional phones. As telecommunications giant AT&T accelerates its push to retire landline service to about 184,000 households and 15,000 businesses across the state, hundreds of Californians have voiced alarm in public comments.

It wasn’t a surprise when Carolina West Wireless decided to sell its wireless business to Verizon. It’s the same old story for a lot of regional and rural carriers. It wasn’t always like this. Twenty or so years ago, smaller carriers raked in the dough from roaming revenues as larger carriers paid for their subscribers to roam onto their networks. But nationwide carriers slowly but surely expanded their coverage, encroaching on the regional operators’ territories, leaving little by way of roaming revenues.