Internet/Broadband

I know we all know some humans. And I hope they all survive longer than our AI overlords currently predict. But I start there because they are often lost in discussions about technology. For over 45 years, the Benton Institute—and our allies like Public Knowledge—have worked to ensure our policy debates are not about one technology or another, not one industry segment or company over another, but about what role communications and information services play in improving human lives.

On October 8, the Schools, Health and Libraries Coalition released a new study, conducted by the Brattle Group, on the economic impact of the E-Rate program. Brattle finds that removing roughly $2.6 billion in annual E-Rate support would reduce annual real GDP by about $4.2 billion, which translates to about $1.60 in lost economic activity for every $1 of E-Rate support removed. The report comes as the Federal Communications Commission conducts “the most comprehensive review of the E-Rate program in more than a decade.”

Business Oregon’s Oregon Broadband Office is pleased to announce a major milestone for grantees of the Digital Connectivity Technology Program: Project Implementation Completion. Through DCTP, organizations across Oregon have expanded access to internet-enabled technology and Wi-Fi at no cost to community members who need it the most. Projects have established and enhanced public computing labs, device lending programs, and public Wi-Fi access, helping communities connect to the digital tools and resources they need for work, education, health care, and everyday life.

Last week I finished a hundred-page empirical report on four federal and two state broadband subsidy programs. It found that the programs mostly paid for service that was coming anyway, and that the ones with credible comparison groups bought a year or so of earlier service at a few thousand dollars per location per year. A project like that would once have taken me a year with a research assistant.

CostQuest Associates announced that it has been awarded a contract by the Federal Communications Commission to continue providing the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric, the foundational dataset underpinning the Commission’s Broadband Data Collection program. CostQuest was awarded the contract on September 4, 2026, following a competitive procurement process. The award reaffirms the company’s role in providing location-level data that federal, state, and local policymakers rely on to improve broadband mapping and expand connectivity across the United States. 

President Trump presented National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology and Innovation, our nation’s highest honors for exemplary achievement and leadership in science and technology, to six of America’s greatest living innovators. Since 1963, the President of the United States has bestowed the National Medal of Science on those deserving of special recognition for their outstanding contributions to science in service of the United States.

At the Science: A New Golden Age Summit, the Trump Administration launched the most ambitious set of science initiatives in decades, representing over $6 billion in investments across the Federal Government, industry, academia, and philanthropy to usher in a New Golden Age of Science. America’s largest Federal research agencies and partners across the science ecosystem launched whole-of-nation efforts to position the United States to lead in a new era of scientific discovery.

Gov Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority Executive Director Brandon Carson visited Bald Eagle High School in Centre County to announce that more than $448 million in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment grants have been awarded to projects in 50 counties across the Commonwealth. This is the first round of awards after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration approved more than $711 million in BEAD funding for Pennsylvania in April.

Gov Wes Moore (D-MD) is forming a bipartisan group of governors to respond to mounting concerns about the threats posed by artificial intelligence, as he argued that states need to fill a void left by the federal government’s inaction on the issue.

The Federal Communications Commission recently banged the gavel and closed out our first spectrum auction in nearly 4 years. Bringing that one home was part of a broader effort we are undertaking to reinvigorate the agency’s work on a wide range of spectrum matters. This month, we’re continuing to push ahead with a packed agenda—from kicking off the process for another spectrum auction to supercharging wireless competition and making more good progress on national security, consumer protection, and rural broadband.