Reporting

According to a new report from the financial analysts at New Street Research, the US telecommunications industry stands to lose roughly $4 billion in market value–and $1.1 billion in revenues–if the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) ends.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) has proven to be a digital lifeline for its 23 million beneficiaries. However, although lawmakers have known for over a year that the fund would be bankrupt by this spring, GOP congressional leaders have not budged on even bipartisan attempts to save the ACP, prompting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to announce in January the wind down the popular program. It’s a major setback for the “Internet for All” effort,

In spite of all the public broadband haters, municipalities will be allowed to vie for money from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

The clock is ticking on a federal internet subsidy that affects about 5,000 East Hartford (CT) households. The Affordable Connectivity Program provides $30-a-month subsidies to low-income households and requires internet providers to offer packages as low as $30 a month to those households to make it more affordable to needy families. But unless the federal government acts soon, the program could go away by the end of April.

Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program Director Evan Feinman spoke to the Elko Daily Free Press about what the BEAD program means for Nevada and how citizens can get involved.

Pennsylvania will be getting $1.2 billion in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program rural broadband funding, making it one of the top states in terms of the amount awarded. Telecompetitor spoke with Brandon Carson, executive director of the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority, about BEAD and other efforts to make broadband available throughout the state. Pennsylvania aims to deliver service to 236,000 unserved and 52,000 underserved locations.

A majority of the Supreme Court seemed wary on March 18 of a bid by two Republican-led states to limit the Biden Administration’s interactions with social media companies, with several justices questioning the states’ legal theories and factual assertions. Most of the justices appeared convinced that government officials should be able to try to persuade private companies, whether news organizations or tech platforms, not to publish information so long as the requests are not backed by coercive threats.

Speed is but one thread in the tapestry of connectivity and user experience. To address bandwidth-constrained households, some ISPs and vendors are exploring alternative routes to enhance network performance. Traffic prioritization tools within the home, for instance, offer a potential solution for the bandwidth-constrained. The key to driving user adoption of tools like this is to make the interface easy to use, and automate where possible. Speed has become “less relevant,”  said OpenVault CEO Mark Trudeau, now that the industry has reached multi-gig levels.

Congress is spending $65 billion to connect the rural United States to the world. Orangeburg (SC) knows the stakes better than anywhere. Like hundreds of rural counties across the US, Orangeburg is ignored by commercial broadband service providers who think it’s not profitable to lay fiber optic lines in the area. In the absence of service from companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter, counties and small towns in rural America could build broadband networks for their residents themselves, which can make the difference between prosperity and poverty.

There’s a lot of talk about how the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) might make a mess of things with the Broadband Equity, Access & Deployment (BEAD) program. That’s because if a location is covered by an RDOF award, then it’s ineligible for a BEAD grant. Unfortunately, many RDOF awardees have officially defaulted on their obligations to build fiber, or they just haven’t made any progress in deploying the fiber.