Reporting

The National Hispanic Media Coalition, Color of Change, NAACP and the Benton Foundation are among the organizations concerned about proposed changes to the Lifeline program, which is on the docket for the Federal Communications Commission’s upcoming open meeting. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai -- who has long called for reforms to deter waste, fraud and abuse in Lifeline -- is seeking a vote at the agency’s Nov. 16 meeting on a major overhaul of the program, which subsidizes phone and broadband service for the poor.

Apparently, the Justice Department has called on AT&T and Time Warner to sell Turner Broadcasting, the group of cable channels that includes CNN, as a potential requirement for approving the companies’ pending $85.4 billion deal. The other possible way for the merger to win approval would be for AT&T to sell its DirecTV division, apparently.

Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) wants the Federal Communications Commission to tap into more state and local government input on broadband deployment, suggesting the FCC’s goal now is to serve industry and tie the hands of those local governments. That came in a letter Rep Eshoo sent to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the other commissioners Nov 7. Rep Eshoo wants to see more state and local officials on the FCC's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC).

Dish Network recently revealed that it was not going to buy the 13.5 MHz chunk of nationwide 800 MHz spectrum from T-Mobile. Since then, questions brewed: Who will buy it? Does anyone have $3.59 billion at their disposal? If so, what will they do with it? T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert confirmed the auction has begun. “We have commenced. We have interested parties.

“You do not like it, so you say. But try it, try it and you may.” Like Dr. Seuss’ famous green eggs and ham, the people have tried fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband and by golly, they like it. These days it’s here, it’s there and—if a pair of fresh survey reports are any indication—it's not going anywhere. New reports from Ericsson and J.D. Power show FWA beating cable and competing well with fiber rivals in customer satisfaction. J.D.

The Federal Communications Commission fined the nation’s largest wireless carriers for illegally sharing access to customers’ location information without consent and without taking reasonable measures to protect that information against unauthorized disclosure. Sprint and T-Mobile—which have merged since the investigation began—face fines of more than $12 million and $80 million, respectively.

Associations representing large and small broadband providers are presenting a united front in opposition to New York’s requirement that providers offer a low-income internet service for $15 a month. In a prepared statement, six telecommunications provider associations said they support efforts to connect all Americans to broadband and that they are “committed to providing affordable options and a variety of plans to meet every family’s needs.” They added, however, that they are “disappointed” by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold New York’s mandatory $15-a-month offerin

The Financial Times has struck a deal with OpenAI to train artificial intelligence models on the publisher’s archived content, in the latest agreement between the Microsoft-backed start-up and a global news publisher. Under the terms of the deal, the FT will license its material to the ChatGPT maker to help develop generative AI technology that can create text, images and code indistinguishable from human creations. The agreement also allows ChatGPT to respond to questions with short summaries from FT articles, with links back to FT.com.

The telecommunications industry’s transition from an analogue to a digital telephone system was partially paused after two Virgin Media O2 customers died following the failure of their telecare devices after the upgrade process. The incidents in 2023 triggered the government’s announcement in December that it had secured industry commitments to protect vulnerable customers.

Overturning a federal judge’s injunction, the Second Circuit on April 26, 2024 revived a New York state law that sought to provide discounted broadband internet to low-income families.