The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded two grants totaling more than $25.7 million to two Tribal nations—The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota and the Pueblo of Acoma in New Mexico—as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP).

• The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe (MN) is being awarded $11,407,585. The project proposes to install fiber to directly connect 356 unserved Native American households, 7 unserved Native American businesses, and 10 unserved community anchor institutions with service ranging from 250/250 Mbps to 1000/1000 Mbps.
• The Pueblo of Acoma (NM) is being awarded $14,346,244. Theproject proposes to install fiber to directly connect 1,167 unserved Native American households and anchor institutions with a minimum of 25/3 Mbps service. 

In a hearing before City Council in June 2022, Baltimore’s then-chief broadband official Jason Hardebeck outlined a vision to bring next-generation internet connection to one of the poorest parts of town, the public housing project Gilmor Homes, within a matter of weeks. He pitched the idea as step one in an aggressive campaign to establish 100 communal Wi-Fi hotspots across West Baltimore, all within a year. But within two months of outlining his proposal for Gilmor Homes to the City Council, Hardebeck was fired from his post without reason given, he says. His plan to connect Gilmor Homes to public internet remains unfulfilled. Two years since Mayor Brandon Scott (D) established an office to close the digital divide, Baltimore leaders have yet to issue a plan showing how the city would meet that goal, which the mayor has pledged to accomplish by 2030 with millions of dollars in federal support. Fundamentally, the delay stems from a clash of visions over the city’s approach. Hardebeck was pursuing an unprecedented, New Deal-style buildout of a city-controlled network delivering fiber-optic internet to the curb of every home in Baltimore, an investment he said would allow the city to ensure high-speed service at more affordable rates to low-income residents than relying on the corporate giants that now dominate the market. 

As the City of South Bend’s Civic Innovation team works to better connect residents in our community, we need to first understand residents’ current experiences across connectivity options. This understanding is especially critical as we prepare for historic investments in internet infrastructure and assess where we should target this funding in our city. For mobile broadband, the type of internet that 12.4% of South Bend residents rely on exclusively (2021 American Community Survey), we turned to Dr. Monisha Ghosh and Dr. Nick Laneman, faculty in Notre Dame’s Wireless Institute and members of the South Bend Connectivity Coalition. Dr Ghosh worked with a former student to launch SigCap, an app that passively measures cellular and Wi-Fi signal type and quality. Working with the city's Solid Waste and Public Works teams, we were be able to test mobile data speeds at almost every residence along our trash truck routes. The data we collected in this project provide a strong foundation for understanding the capabilities of our city’s mobile networks. Depending on the carrier, in some areas performance falls below the Federal Communications Commission’s definition of broadband: 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload.

A SpaceX filing with the Federal Communications Commission prompted the 5G for 12 GHz Coalition to say “hold on a minute” and reiterate its mission to make spectrum in the lower 12 GHz available for terrestrial 5G services. Citing reports by New Street Research, SpaceX said in a March 21 filing that Dish and RS Access, the latter of which it described as “Michael Dell’s Personal Family Trust,” have “abandoned their quest to have the [FCC] hand them new rights for high-powered terrestrial mobile services in the 12.2-12.7 GHz (12 GHz) band.” But V. Noah Campbell, co-founder and CEO of RS Access, said that’s not so. “The claims made by SpaceX in its most recent filing are unequivocally false. The proceeding remains open and the commission has not issued any definitive guidance,” Campbell said. SpaceX asserts that the FCC rejected high-powered fixed terrestrial services in the band when it authorized MVDDS – and only MVDDS – for additional fixed service operations.

The National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs advised T-Mobile to stop advertising that its wireless service has the most reliable 5G network based on tests by umlaut, a third-party testing company. The claims in question were made on T-Mobile’s website and in press releases. A chart in the press release shows T-Mobile with a 5G network reliability score of 466.9; AT&T with a score of 357.4; and Verizon with a score of 304.3. AT&T had challenged T-Mobile’s reliability claims saying, in part, that under umlaut’s methodology, a wireless carrier could lag far behind its competitors in task completion but still be crowned “most reliable” based on coverage and speed scores. AT&T also contended umlaut only measures coverage and speed and not reliability. NAD wasn’t satisfied with umlaut’s methodology. NAD also recommended that T-Mobile discontinue the claim that “independent experts from across the industry have sent a clear message time and time again: there’s one network leader and it’s T-Mobile” with regards to a superior reliability message.