Level of Government

US Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) reintroduced the Rural Broadband Protection Act (S.275), which would require a more thorough vetting and verification process for internet service providers seeking to participate in the Federal Communications Commission's high-cost programs. The bill would provide essential safeguards to the Universal Service Funds' (USF) high-cost programs by ensuring that funding goes to companies with both a proven track record of success and have demonstrated sound judgment in deploying in hard-to-serve areas.

Federal systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks. The GAO has made 236 recommendations in public reports since 2010 with respect to protecting cyber critical infrastructure. Until these are fully implemented, federal agencies will be more limited in their ability to protect private and sensitive data entrusted to them. In September 2022, GAO's review of 24 agencies found that most had generally established policies and procedures for key privacy program activities.

The US Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration awarded $301,030 to the Colorado State University (CSU) System for a planning grant to promote and enhance economic development in rural Colorado.

Broadband expansion is the goal of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program, but the initiative won’t be successful without a sufficient focus on digital equity and community engagement, said NTIA officials.

I want to take on the phrase ‘technology-neutral’. This phrase is being used to justify building technologies that are clearly not as good as fiber. The phrase was used a lot to justify allowing Starlink into the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) reverse auction.

As Los Angeles County officials work with community coalitions to improve high-speed Internet access in underserved communities across the region, the Digital Equity LA Summit focused on the challenges ahead: urging state officials to fix the broadband priority maps the state will use to target where to invest $2 billion in state broadband grant funds with the state months away from receiving over a billion additional dollars from the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Representing the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) were Michael Mullaney, Preside

The Federal Communications Commission recently released a “pre-production” draft of its new National Broadband Map in an effort to provide more precise details about where internet service does and does not exist in individual locations across the US. While much attention has been paid to how the map represents broadband service for individual households, there is much less understanding among the general public with regards to how the map represents individual community anchor institutions, such as public schools, libraries, and hospitals.

As the 2022 elections essentially came to a close on December 6, 2022, then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) promised that the House of Representatives—under a new, Republican majority—would "conduct rigorous oversight of the federal government" in the 118th Congress.

Gigi Sohn, President Joe Biden's long-stalled nominee to the Federal Communications Commission fired back at her critics at a Senate Commerce Committee nomination hearing, saying that the telecommunications industry shouldn't be allowed to choose its own regulators. "Unfortunately, that is the exact intent of the past 15 months of false and misleading attacks on my record and my character," she testified. "My industry opponents have hidden behind dark money groups and surrogates because they fe

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel sent letters to the nation’s 9 largest providers of Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) seeking information on how these alerts can start to support more languages beyond English and Spanish. WEA messages provide geographically targeted, text-like messages to mobile devices alerting consumers of imminent threats to safety in their area. Since the program became operational in 2012, it has been used more than 70,000 times to warn the public about dangerous weather, missing children, or other critical situations.