The federal government has spent $12.82 billion in the last two years helping low-income households pay for internet service. Almost a quarter of it has gone to one company. Charter Communications received $3.01 billion through the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a larger slice than any of its competitors. Charter’s use of the program has come to the attention of regulators, who are examining some of its practices. At least two aspects of Charter’s approach to the ACP set it apart from its competitors. Charter pushed to sign up not only new customers for the government-subsidized plans, but also many of its existing subscribers. Existing subscribers who meet the qualifications are eligible for the program, and by law providers must promote it in their service area and tell customers about it when they renew a subscription, although some critics question if this is consistent with the stated goals of the ACP. Another distinctive piece of Charter’s strategy is the way it verifies customers’ eligibility. Many companies use the government-provided “National Verifier,” but they can also use their own process. Charter has primarily used an in-house method. In May 2023, the Federal Communications Commission sent a public letter to Charter asking the company to to double-check customers’ eligibility using the National Verifier. 

Charter understands better than most the struggles people face in getting and staying connected: it’s our job and these customers are our family, friends, and neighbors. When a global pandemic pushed so much of everyday life online, the gap between those with and without connectivity was exposed, and many realized for the first time the impossible situation faced by families who either didn’t have internet service available or could not afford service. We knew Charter had a unique and outsized opportunity to be part of the solution, including through participation in some government support programs: 

• Increasing Internet Availability: Charter is investing more than $4 billion in private funding alongside government support in our rural construction initiative, which is bringing gigabit-speed broadband to more than a million currently unserved or underserved mostly rural locations.
• Increasing Internet Affordability: harter actively promoted the Emergency Broadband Benefit and Affordable Connectivity Programs (ACP), including in our stores, through news and social media, on our website, and through direct mail to ensure we reach unconnected families in need. Charter’s significant participation in these programs has helped millions of families in need gain and keep access to reliable, high-speed in-home internet service.

When a bipartisan congress created the ACP, they made it available to all low-income families. In other words, the law doesn’t restrict the ACP benefit to “new users” of the internet, in fact, it requires the opposite. The same bipartisan Congress chose to make the ACP available to households that qualify “for a participating provider’s existing low-income program” (called an “alternative verification process”) – so long as they had been in place when the providers’ own funds were at stake. Lawmakers should be proud of the programs they have supported and the difference they’ve already helped make – individual lives changed, rural towns given new opportunities to compete, and entire communities reaping the rewards. Few things matter more than continuing this progress connecting the millions of Americans who still aren’t online and ensuring that high-speed internet remains within reach for every family in America, regardless of income.

In June 2023, President Joe Biden announced how $42 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment funding will be allocated across the US and its territories to bring 100% broadband access to nearly 60 million unserved or underserved Americans within five years. That goal, and the billions of dollars and new tools available, will give policymakers, communities, and industry stakeholders a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to bridge the digital divide. However, finances are finite and currently trending in a budget-busting “fiber-first” direction. Fiber is great where attainable, but this approach overlooks the important realities of providing reliable broadband to underserved areas at scale, and fiber alone would require far more funding than what is currently available. Thanks to recent technological advancements, there are new tools available that efficiently and cost-effectively reach those forgotten by “fiber-first” thinking. Next-generation fixed wireless access is a unique technology category that overcomes long-battled challenges of the wireless broadband industry. For the first time ever, we have what it takes to achieve 100% coverage with readily available funds, and in timelines measured in weeks and months rather than multiple years. With billions of dollars at stake, and all of the technological means to get this right, the time is now to bridge the digital divide for every American family.

[Carl Guardino serves as the vice president of government affairs and public policy at Tarana]

The US Chamber of Commerce is asking a federal appeals court to vacate the Federal Communications Commission’s recent digital discrimination order. As mandated by the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, the commission adopted rules in November 2023 to prevent gaps in broadband access based on race, income level, and other demographic characteristics – known as digital discrimination. The rules take up a “disparate impact” standard for identifying that discrimination, meaning broadband providers could be in violation even if they are not intentionally withholding adequate internet from a protected group. The Chamber of Commerce, along with two Texas business associations, filed a short petition for review with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on January 19, asking judges to vacate the digital discrimination rules on the grounds they are “arbitrary, capricious,” and “in excess of the Commission’s statutory authority” under the infrastructure law. While its filing last week was brief, the Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups have expanded on their position in comments throughout the FCC’s rulemaking process. In June 2022 the group pushed for a “disparate intent” standard for discrimination, which would only prevent willfully discriminatory conduct, arguing a disparate impact standard would be broader than Congress intended.

Since Apple introduced the App Store in 2008, it has tightly controlled the apps and services allowed on iPhones and iPads, giving the company an iron grip on one of the digital economy’s most valuable storefronts. Now Apple is weakening its hold on the store, in one of the most consequential signs to date of how new European regulations are changing consumer technology. To comply with a European Union competition law taking effect on March 7, Apple announced major changes to the App Store and other services for consumers in Europe. Users of iPhones and iPads in the 27-nation bloc will, for the first time, be able to use alternative app stores to download games, productivity tools, and other apps. Banks and shopping services can offer competing payment methods inside their apps. People who buy new iPhones in the future will also see a new menu for downloading alternative browsers to Apple’s Safari, such as Chrome and Firefox. Apple said it would maintain some oversight of new marketplaces and apps working outside its App Store, but warned that the new E.U. policies would give hackers and criminals a new path to distribute malware and defraud customers. The company said it had created a system to monitor all iOS apps, approve alternative app stores and track alternative payment systems. Apple said developers would also be charged a fee of 50 euro cents for every download of their app after it has been downloaded one million times or more within a 12-month period, regardless of whether it was through the App Store or an alternative. This will also apply to free apps, but not apps distributed by government, education and nonprofit organizations. The new rules could dent Apple’s finances.

Illinois is home to over 12.7 million individuals in approximately 4.9 million families who speak over 20 languages. These families live in 102 counties that range from the dense urban areas found in Cook, DuPage, and Lake counties to the rural areas in Pope and Stark counties; from Illinois’ manufacturing centers like the Quad Cities, Rockford, and Greater Peoria regions to the farmlands of Gallatin, White, and Sangamon counties. Common to all of these communities and geographies is the way they stay connected to each other and to the broader global community; how they access healthcare, education, and other essential services; and, increasingly, how they sustain their livelihoods within the digital economy: by using high-speed internet in our homes and community anchor institutions. The Illinois Office of Broadband now seeks public comment on the draft Illinois State Digital Equity Plan. The goal of the draft Illinois State Digital Equity Plan is to enable populations with the education and tools necessary to fully leverage digital assets that are powered by reliable, high-speed internet, so that all Illinoisians can fully participate in the digital economy and the digital ecosystem. The Office of Broadband is accepting feedback on the draft plan through COB on January 31, 2024.

A program that helped millions of households across the country — and 2.8 million in California — afford internet access is ending, without additional funding from Congress. The Affordable Connectivity Program began in 2021 under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. California received about $1.3 billion in funding through the program that helped about 1-in-5 households in the state. The Federal Communications Commission said that current funding is projected to run out in April and households will receive benefits through the end of the month. The program needs a $6 billion infusion to extend the program through 2024. When funds run out, households won’t get the discounts. A bipartisan group of six lawmakers — including Sens Peter Welch (D-VT) and JD Vance (R-OH) — called for additional funding through the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which could extend the program through the end of the year. 

The US has gained an additional 47 municipal broadband networks since January 2021, bringing the total to nearly 450. But as municipal and public networks gain in popularity, efforts to squash them are growing as well. Among the latest moves against public broadband includes proposed legislation circulating in the state of Kentucky that could see one municipality forced to sell its fiber network. The legislation reportedly being proposed by State Senator Gex Williams, a Republican, would require the Frankfort Plant Board (FPB) to sell or transfer its telecommunications business to a private entity. The issue caught the attention of the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), led by Gigi Sohn, who called the proposed legislation "a solution in search of a problem." AAPB has also been leading the charge against other emerging efforts to challenge municipal projects. In 2023, an organization called the Domestic Policy Caucus (DPC) launched a new campaign against public broadband efforts: NoGovInternet.com, which primarily takes aim at Utah's Utopia Fiber. DPC is also supporting a campaign called Mass Priorities, which is rallying against municipal projects in Massachusetts.

The United States’ leadership in spectrum policy, 5G and reaping the economic benefits of the most advanced mobile networks are in jeopardy and have to get back on track, CTIA’s president and CEO says in a strongly worded new blog post. The biggest symptom of the problem? The fact that the Federal Communications Commission’s auction authority has still not yet been renewed by Congress, which has meant that no new auctions can be held and which also impacted previous auctions, including T-Mobile US’ ability to access the slew of 2.5 GHz licenses that it won in 2022. CEO Meredith Attwell Baker said that “America’s wireless future hinges on” four things:

1. Reestablishing the FCC’s auction authority along with a “forward-looking and comprehensive pipeline of future auctions.”
2. An implementation plan for the previously established National Spectrum Strategy with “clear targets for future full-power auctions, an expedited two-year study schedule, and clarification that NTIA will lead and manage the new studies.”
3. The federal government quickly providing licensed commercial access to the lower 3 GHz band. 
4. Focusing efforts on the upper midband at 7-8 GHz.

The Federal Communications Commission updated its rules, and proposed additional updates, to improve communications network reliability, resiliency, and transparency during disasters and outages. The rule changes will increase participation in, and enhance the use of, the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS), in which service providers report on their operational status during emergencies. Certain types of communications providers are required to report network outages to the FCC’s Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) on an ongoing basis. To address gaps in NORS, the FCC adopted rules that:

• Require cable communications, wireline, wireless, and interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers to report daily infrastructure status information when DIRS is activated for geographic areas in which they provide service.
• Suspend NORS reporting obligations when providers are required to report in DIRS during a disaster, so they are not obligated to report twice.
• Require DIRS filers to provide a single, final summary DIRS report to the Commission within 24 hours of the deactivation of DIRS

The Federal Trade Commission announced that it issued orders to five companies requiring them to provide information regarding recent investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies and major cloud service providers. The agency’s 6(b) inquiry will scrutinize corporate partnerships and investments with AI providers to build a better internal understanding of these relationships and their impact on the competitive landscape.  The compulsory orders were sent to Alphabet, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., Anthropic PBC, Microsoft Corp., and OpenAI, Inc. The FTC is seeking information specifically related to:

• Information regarding a specific investment or partnership, including agreements and the strategic rationale of an investment/partnership.
• The practical implications of a specific partnership or investment, including decisions around new product releases, governance or oversight rights, and the topic of regular meetings.
• Analysis of the transactions’ competitive impact, including information related to market share, competition, competitors, markets, potential for sales growth, or expansion into product or geographic markets.
• Competition for AI inputs and resources, including the competitive dynamics regarding key products and services needed for generative AI.  
• Information provided to any other government entity, including foreign government entities, in connection with any investigation, request for information, or other inquiry related to these topics.

On January 25, the Commission will convene its first open meeting of the new year. We already have plans to build on this forward momentum for 2024. Here’s what’s on the agenda for our February open meeting.

• We’re making emergency alerts more accessible. The Commission will consider of proposal to facilitate multilingual alerting so more viewers and listeners will receive public safety alerts in the language that corresponds with the content they are consuming. We will also seek comment on making alerts accessible for users of American Sign Language.
• We’re empowering consumers to block robocalls and robotexts. In three weeks, we will consider new rules to strengthen the ability of consumers to decide which robocalls and robotexts they wish to receive. We will also be voting on a proposal to close loopholes that allow wireless providers to make robocalls and robotexts without the ability for the subscriber to opt out.
• We’re unleashing space-based innovation. More than 100 companies have already undertaken projects or research to pursue new space-based activities like satellite refueling, inspecting and repairing in-orbit spacecraft, and capturing and removing debris. The Commission will vote on a proposal to create a new framework for licensing space stations engaged in these types of in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing—or “ISAM.” 
• We’re expanding opportunities for wireless microphone users. New wireless microphone technologies use spectrum more efficiently, meaning more microphones can used without allocating more airwaves. The Commission will vote to allow this new wireless microphone system to operate on a licensed or unlicensed basis, while preserving the existing spectrum rights of others that share those frequencies.
• We will consider an adjudicatory matter from our Media Bureau.
• We will also consider an item from our Enforcement Bureau.