Affordability is a bigger problem than availability when it comes to closing the digital divide in home broadband, and NTIA stopping its BEAD efforts at deployment "means leaving most of the digital divide in place," the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's Joe Kane wrote Thursday. NTIA should make clear that states can use BEAD to support home broadband affordability but not mobile service, said Kane, the organization's director of broadband and spectrum policy. He noted that limiting affordability support to home broadband wouldn't compromise BEAD's technology neutrality. Using BEAD money on home broadband, but not mobile, would take care of concerns that consumers will apply benefits to mobile service they already have, making affordability support ineffective at addressing home broadband.
Charter Communications' proposed acquisition of Cox Communications would mean more gatekeeper power over internet distribution, less competition, higher prices and unequal treatment of underserved communities, according to a petition to deny filed Tuesday (docket 25-233) with the FCC. Petitioners Public Knowledge, the Communications Workers of America, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the Center for Accessible Technology laid out an array of criticisms of the deal, including over plans to cut Cox employees and their prediction of price hikes on consumers enabled by market concentration.
Congress, and the FCC, may face reduced pressure to reform the USF with an expected drop in its contribution factor, but calls for change won’t go away, experts said Monday. The USF contribution factor is expected to decline from 38.1% in Q4 to 30.9% in Q1, as projected demand decreases, analyst Billy Jack Gregg said Saturday in an email. That’s based on new numbers from the Universal Service Administrative Co.
NTIA is unfairly emphasizing use of low earth orbit satellite connectivity in BEAD, sometimes in cases where LEO doesn't make sense, some state broadband officials said Thursday. Speaking at the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition's annual conference, Christine Hallquist, executive director of the Vermont Community Broadband Board, said many BEAD locations being awarded to LEO bids won't actually get service due to geographic issues like dense foliage and mountains. Hallquist said that of the state's roughly 15,000 BEAD locations, about 1,300 are being awarded to LEO.
Top Senate Commerce Committee leaders told us they aren’t yet completely ruling out proposals to make the USF subject to Congress’ annual appropriations process as part of a legislative revamp of the program. However, some panel Democrats are dubious because of flaws in the funding system, amplified by the ongoing government shutdown (see 2510230049). In comments submitted to Congress' bipartisan USF working group, some stakeholders also strongly advocated for shifting to an appropriations-based funding model (see 2509160064). Meanwhile, panelists at a Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition event Wednesday said they see appropriations as a largely unappealing option to give USF more sustainable long-term funding.
A draft further NPRM proposing the relaxation of some FCC requirements for broadband labels is expected to be approved at the agency’s Oct. 28 meeting, but it isn’t yet clear how Commissioner Anna Gomez will vote on it.
The Benefit of the Bargain (BoB) version of BEAD is shaping up to be "a tremendous success," with state plans to date coming in $15 billion under what they were allocated, NTIA head Arielle Roth said Monday. Speaking at SCTE's TechExpo event in Washington, Roth said NTIA is also pressing states in some cases to submit cheaper final proposals.
The FCC is demanding that Boomerang Wireless and Assist Wireless repay $1.18 million in what the agency says were overpayments for connected devices as part of the affordable connectivity program (ACP) and emergency broadband benefit (EBB) program. In a statement Tuesday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called the companies "unscrupulous providers." Some companies saw the pandemic-era programs "as a target for overfilling and padded their reimbursement requests."
A handful of right-leaning groups are pressing strongly for a bipartisan congressional working group to recommend funding USF via the appropriations process as part of a potential legislative revamp of the program, but other stakeholders said they still they favor various expansions of the initiative’s contributions base. Comments to the working group were due late Monday night as part of its recently relaunched bill consultations (see 2508010051). The right-leaning groups also called for the most far-reaching changes to the program’s governance and structure, in some cases seeking to ax the high-cost fund.
As policymakers look at reforms to the USF, they need to examine why so many people who are eligible for support don’t enroll in Lifeline and other programs, experts said Monday during an event hosted by Georgetown University's Center for Business and Public Policy. The session coincided with Monday's deadline for responding to the congressional USF working group's request for comments and proposals on USF reform.