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In The Verge: Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband
Today, The Verge published an in-depth piece authored by our own Sean Gonsalves and ILSR contributor Karl Bode that examines the BEAD program from its inception to the boondoggle its become. The piece details how the once-in-a-generation program meant to solve America’s digital divide has devolved into “a flaming mess.”
Trump Commerce Department: 18 BEAD Proposals Approved by NTIA
The Commerce Department has approved 18 final spending plans under its $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. One state, Louisiana, had access to its funding, according to the agency. NTIA approval is one of the last steps before states and territories can start signing contracts and projects can get underway. Louisiana had gone through the remaining reviews and had access to its BEAD deployment funding Tuesday, NTIA said.
Broadband Bootcamp for Great Lakes Tribes to Take Place in August
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians will host a four-day Tribal Broadband Bootcamp on the Tribe's Marquette campus in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in August. It will be the second held in the Great Lakes region, designed primarily for members of 36 federally recognized Tribes across Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Participants will be reimbursed for travel costs, room and board, and meals.
States Moving Ahead With BEAD Processes
States are moving ahead with their Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program processes after the Commerce Department extended for 90 days the deadlines for final spending plans. The Trump administration last week gave all states a 90-day extension on their deadlines to submit their lists of selected projects for approval, documents that were originally due one year after a state’s initial BEAD implementation proposal was given the federal green light.
Supreme Court Still Won't Review N.Y. Affordable Broadband Act
The broadband industry keeps trying to get the Supreme Court to help them, and the Supreme Court keeps saying no. The high court said again Monday that it will not hear the industry’s challenge to a New York law capping broadband prices for low-income customers.
Massachusetts Low-Income Broadband Bill Gets Pushback
A New England ISP trade group is pushing back against a Massachusetts bill that seeks to cap broadband rates for low-income households.
NaLA Survey Reveals Post-ACP Hardship for Economically Vulnerable
The 68,000 survey responses highlighted a critical need for Lifeline and ACP programs. Americans who relied on the ACP have struggled to find work, balance their budgets, and access healthcare, according to the NaLA survey.
Consumer Groups Upset About a Chairman Brendan Carr
Consumer advocacy groups that frequently appear before the Federal Communications Commission are not happy with President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the agency. Brendan Carr, the agency’s senior Republican who’s now set to take the reins in January, wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC.
INCOMPAS Views Broadband As A Highly Concentrated Arena
With the Federal Communications Commission preparing a biennial report to Congress assessing competition in communications, some industry stakeholders have voiced concern over the growing dominance of a few major players.
Federal Municipal Network Support Declining, Warns Experts
Experts express concern that federal support for municipal broadband is limited, prompting uncertainty about future funding and operational sustainability. At a Fiber for Breakfast event Wednesday, Tyler Cooper, editor-in-chief of Broadband Now, said that Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants are less promising for municipal broadband deployments despite initial promises.
Senate Passes FAA Reauthorization Without ACP Amendment
The Senate voted Thursday evening to pass its Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization package without an amendment that would have funded the Affordable Connectivity Program.
Broadband Bills To Enhance Local Autonomy Thwarted By Wisconsin State Senate
In a setback to efforts aimed at enhancing broadband access across Wisconsin, the state Senate this week dealt a blow to three key bills aimed at improving various aspects of broadband provision.
IN OUR VIEW: ‘Without Political Power, There is No Path to Digital Equity’
A panel discussion at Net Inclusion 2024 sparked thought-provoking conversation, raising difficult questions for the digital equity movement about whether we are on track to achieve our goals and whether the main strategies used today can result in digital equity or are destined to fall well short.
AAPB Calls For Help in Developing Public Broadband Handbook
The American Association for Public Broadband is calling for help in creating a handbook that helps communities examine their option to create and maintain public broadband networks. The handbook will be a “hands-on, high-level resource for moving through the entire process including getting started, building community support, technology and business case analysis, role of partners and finance.”
South Carolina’s Innovative Broadband Maps Verifies ISPs Internet Speeds
South Carolina’s innovative state broadband map can accurately identify areas of over-reporting by Internet service providers (ISPs). The South Carolina State Broadband Office now performs audits on the ISPs to ensure they are submitting accurate data. The office partnered with broadband data collection company Ookla and integrated speed test data directly into the mapping system
Capital Construction of a Municipal Broadband Utility 101
Brieana Reed-Harmel, manager of the municipal-owned Pulse fiber network in Loveland, Colorado, shares her experience leading the city through the assessment and feasibility study that led to building a sucessful municipal broadband network. Reed-Harmel covers planning considerations, managing experts, scaling and quality assurance, as well as nurturing the human elements in a technical project
Is High-Speed Internet Access Getting More Affordable, Really?
A recent report by BroadbandNow suggested that the average price for broadband access for Americans has fallen, by an average of 31 percent or nearly $34/month, since 2016. But you don’t have to follow broadband policy closely to get the sense that something a little off is going on here. The reality is that the report, unfortunately, poorly frames the national broadband marketplace. At best, it muddies the waters with a lack of clarity about the relationship between broadband access speed tiers and relative pricing. At worst, it leaves the average reader with the incorrect assumption that broadband prices must be falling, and gives the monopoly cable and telephone companies ammunition to push for millions more in taxpayer dollars while building as little new infrastructure as possible.
Announcing the Digital Health Story Collection - Share Your Telehealth Experience With Us
Today we launch the Digital Health Story Collection, an opportunity for health care providers and health care users to share experiences with or difficulties accessing telehealth care across the country.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 339
This is the transcript for episode 339 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher Mitchell speaks with Nancy DiGidio and Glenn Fishbine from NEO Partners LLC about the Community Networks Quickstart program, which is a collaborative project of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative and NEO Partners.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 338
This is the transcript for episode 338 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher speaks with Jeff Christensen from EntryPoint about software defined networking and how to change our current telecommunications models to promote innovation and subscriber control.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 336
This is the transcript for episode 336 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher speaks with industry analyst and podcast host Craig Settles about telehealth. The audio version of this episode is available here.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 335
This is the transcript for episode 335 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode Christopher speaks with Councilor Joel McAuliffee about efforts to establish a municipal fiber network in Chicopee, Massachusetts.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 334
This is the transcript for episode 334 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. In this episode, Christopher Mitchell speaks with Russell Senior and Michael Hanna, board members of the Municpal Broadband Coalition of America, about Municipal Broadband PDX, an initiative to develop a publicly owned broadband network in the Portland, Oregon, region.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 333
This is the transcript for episode 333 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher speaks with Will Mitchell and Sean Myers of VETRO FiberMap about how communities have been using their mapping platform to design, build, and manage their broadband networks and about the importance of GIS data.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 332
This is the transcript for episode 332 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Dalton, Georgia, has been offering high-speed connectivity to residents and businesses for over a decade, and for this episode, Christopher finally gets a chance to speak with Hank Blackwood from Dalton Utilities about their fiber network OptiLink.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 331
This is the transcript for episode 331 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. For this episode, Christopher speaks with Kimberly McKinley, chief marketing officer for UTOPIA Fiber in Utah. They discuss the open access fiber network's recent successes and how marketing has played a key role in growing the network.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 330
This is the transcript for episode 330 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. While at the 2018 Broadband Communities Economic Development Conference in Ontario, California, Christopher spoke with broadband consultant and practitioner Jory Wolf about various projects happening in California.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 329
This is the transcript for Community Broadband Bits episode 329. In this episode, recorded at the 2018 Broadband Communities Economic Development Conference in Ontario, California, Christopher talks with Deb Socia of Next Century Cities and Bob Knight of Harrison Edwards about political will and community broadband projects.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 328
This is the transcript for episode 328 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher Mitchell speaks with Joe Knapp, the IT Director for Sandy, Oregon, about the city's municipal broadband network SandyNet.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 327
This is the transcript for episode 327 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher talks with Brett Schuppner, General Manager of Reedsburg Utilities Commission, about how the municipal fiber network has decided to go all gig and their expansion plans.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 326
This is the transcript for episode 326 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher talks with representatives from the City of Mont Belvieu, Texas, about their community fiber network MB Link.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 325
This is the transcript for espisode 325 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher speaks with Maisie Ramsay from Colorado Central Telecom about how the fixed wireless provider is connecting rural Colorado.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 324
This is the transcript for episode 324 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher discusses the new Fiber-to-the-Home project from Great Lakes Energy, Michigan's largest electric cooperative, with Shari Culver, the co-op's Vice President of Communications, Marketing, and Energy Optimization.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 321
This is the transcript for episode 321 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast, "Analyzing the Auction with Jonathan Chambers." In this episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast, Christopher Mitchell discuesses the recently released results of the Connect America Fund Phase II auction with Jonathan Chambers of Conexon.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 319
This is the transcript for episode 319 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher Mitchell speaks with our former public policy intern Hannah Rank about Monkeybrains, a San Francisco ISP that has figured out a way to bring high-quality Internet access to residents of the city's low-income housing.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 317
This is the transcript for episode 317 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. In this episode, Christopher Mitchell and Hannah Trostle discuss our recently released report Profiles of Monopoly: Big Cable and Telecom.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 316
This is the transcript for Episode 316 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. Justin Holzgrove of Mason County PUD 3 in Washington and Isak Finer from COS Systems discuss the expansion plans in Mason County and how COS Systems is helping the utility determine a strategic deployment approach.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 315
This is the transcript for episode 315 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Matt Larson of Vistabeam Internet joins the show via Mountain Connect in Colorado. Listen to this episode here.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 314
This is the transcript for episode 314 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. John Gavan and Brad Harding from Colorado join the show to discuss economic development, electric cooperatives, and broadband service.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 313
This is the transcript for episode 313 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Terry Huval of LUS Fiber reflects on the process of creating a community network. Listen to this episode here.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 312
This is the transcript for episode 132 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Christopher interviews Tony Neal-Graves from Colorado's Broadband Office at Mountain Connect. Listen to this episode here.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 311
This is the transcript for episode 311 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Christopher Mitchell gets an update on how folks in Larimer County, Colorado, are improving their communities' high-speed Internet access.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 310
This is the transcript for episode 310 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. In this episode, Rick Smith joins the show to dicuss Colorado's connectivity. Listen to this episode here.
Suddenlink's Bad Behavior in Pinetops May Indicate A Troubled Future: Legislature Sides With Big Cable
Rural Pinetop residents are getting a glimpse of the treatment they are going to receive from Suddenlink, even before the ISP has started offering service in the small North Carolina community. According to locals, Suddenlink subcontractors are busting water mains, connecting fiber without homeowner permission, and spreading lies about the Town’s favored community-broadband pr
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 309
This is the transcript for Episode 309 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. The towns of Baileyville and Calais, Maine, joined forces to create a the Downeast Broadband Utility. Christopher interviews Julie Jordan, the director of the project.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 308
This is the transcript for episode 308 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. Mayor Marian Orr of Cheyenne, Wyoming, joins the show to discuss broadband access in the state. Listen to this episode here.
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 307
This is the transcript for episode 307 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Financing a municipal network project doesn't have to be a challenge. Tom Coverick of KeyBanc Capital Markets explains what Brigham City, Utah, did to expand the Utopia open access network.