The FCC's controversial NPRM on Lifeline rules appears likely to be approved 2-1 Wednesday, with a dissent by Commissioner Anna Gomez and only limited changes, said industry officials engaged in the proceeding. Groups seeking changes to the rules said they remain hopeful that commissioners will tweak the NPRM to address their concerns.
With shovels about to go into the ground for BEAD, focus must shift to performance testing, broadband policy experts said Tuesday at NARUC's Winter Policy Summit in Washington. There’s a critical need for accountability to show that the service being paid for is actually operating within the parameters that ISPs promised, said NTCA Executive Vice President Mike Romano. Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, added that previous federal deployment programs “have done a horrible job” at performance testing and ensuring accountability.
The U.S. can lead the world on AI, but that requires consistent regulation and the ability of providers to build new infrastructure, FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty told the State of the Net conference Monday in Washington. Trusty emphasized the broader Trump administration theme that state laws shouldn’t be allowed to slow growth. “Leadership in AI is not something you declare. It is something you earn and something you must continuously defend.”
The roughly $20 billion in BEAD non-deployment funds should go foremost toward helping pay for counties' next-generation 911 transition, U.S. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson said Wednesday. Speaking at Incompas’ policy conference in Washington, Hudson, R-N.C., said building consensus with committee Democrats about using the money to pay for NG911 is a top priority.
Thirty years in, the 1996 Telecommunications Act has helped usher in some notable successes, such as increased competition and innovation, but it hasn't made nearly as much progress in guaranteeing universal service, telecom policy experts said in a Broadband Breakfast panel discussion Wednesday.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Tuesday that commissioners will take up changes to the USF Lifeline program at their Feb. 18 meeting in an effort to “prevent fraud, and ensure that federal dollars go only to eligible low-income Americans.” The Lifeline item ties back to the Trump administration’s broader campaign against illegal immigrants. Commissioner Anna Gomez slammed the proposed changes, saying they could cause eligible households to lose federal support, including on tribal lands.
Industry groups are pushing the FCC to move forward with proposed changes to its broadband labeling rules and even suggesting ways of going further. Some aspects of the existing label rules "simply do not make sense," USTelecom said.
Italy and Switzerland are seeing increased fiber broadband penetration in households, showing that well-designed government policies and regulations can incentivize the broadband and cloud industries, the World Broadband Association said Monday. In its 2025 broadband and cloud development report, the group said the fixed broadband market across Latin America is increasingly driven by fiber as telcos and cable companies invest in the technology and phase out their copper and cable infrastructure. As of the end of 2024, Latin America had a fiber penetration rate of 37%, eclipsing North America's 28%.
The House Commerce Committee advanced the American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289) Wednesday by a closer-than-expected 26-24 party-line vote, with unified Democratic opposition and a smattering of Republican absences at that point in the markup session. The panel also unanimously advanced the Broadband and Telecommunications Rail Act (HR-6046) and five other bipartisan connectivity bills, as expected (see 2512020063).
Dish Wireless objected at the FCC to a Universal Service Administrative Co. finding that some households it served under the affordable connectivity program and emergency broadband benefit program were ineligible and didn’t comply with USAC’s one-per-household rule.