Open government

The Maine Connectivity Resource Exchange is Maine Connectivity Authority's home to resources and knowledge to support, enable, and empower municipal and Tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, subgrantees, and the public on all aspects of the broadband ecosystem in Maine. The first module is in support of the upcoming BEAD State-Led Challenge Process. This module contains 7 units that will work to guide our partners through this several months-long process.

Fans of Title II-based network neutrality rules are once again flooding the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality comment docket with identical calls for restoration of the rules, as the Democrat-controlled agency has proposed. The docket already has almost 20,000 comments and, as such, is the commission’s most active proceeding, far outstripping the second-place docket for rules on international communications and spectrum issues, which has less than 3,000.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration's new dashboard allows anyone to track how Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program Eligible Entities are progressing through the major milestones necessary to submit their Initial Proposal by the December 27, 2023 due date.

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on Thursday, October 19, 2023. The FCC will consider:

The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition issued a set of crucial recommendations to State and U.S. Territory Broadband Leaders as they shape their BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) Five-Year Action Plans and Initial and Final Proposals. “Community anchor institutions play a crucial role in ensuring open, affordable, high-performance broadband for everyone in the US,” said Adrianne Furniss, Executive Director of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

The Federal Communications Commission currently relies simultaneously on two online case management solutions: FOIA.gov available at https://www.foia.gov and FOIAonline.gov, available at https://foiaonline.gov/foiaonline/action/public/home. With the planned retirement of FOIAonline.gov by its host agency, the FCC will transition from FOIAonline to a new online case management solution beginning October 1, 2023.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directed the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to determine how much each state is to receive in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program funding based on the number of locations in their state unserved by high-speed internet service. One component in the allocation is a determination of the number of “high cost” unserved locations in each state divided by the nationwide total of high-cost unserved locations. Congress also tasked NTIA with defining what “high-cost areas” are.

US Senators John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) reintroduced the Network Equipment Transparency (NET) Act, a bipartisan bill to increase broadband supply chain transparency through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in order to ensure an on-time rollout of federal broadband programs. Broadband infrastructure projects have been affected by supply chain woes in the past.

Twice a year, in spring and fall, the Federal Communications Commission publishes a list in the Unified Agenda of those major items and other significant proceedings under development or review. Items listed here include:

As the 2022 elections essentially came to a close on December 6, 2022, then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) promised that the House of Representatives—under a new, Republican majority—would "conduct rigorous oversight of the federal government" in the 118th Congress.