Level of Government

As the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) winds down, federal officials are hopeful Congress will reauthorize funding for the widely popular project that helps subsidize monthly Internet service for low-income households. “This program is making a difference.

This Public Notice seeks public input to inform the Federal Communications Commission’s required assessment of the state of competition in the communications marketplace in its upcoming Communications Marketplace Report (2024 Communications Marketplace Report) to Congress. Specifically, we seek data, information, and comment on a wide range of issues relevant to the state of competition in the communications marketplace as a whole.

Time’s almost up for Congress to extend funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). Without the funding, 23+ million households risk losing internet access. This federally funded program has made a huge difference in people’s lives, but its future remains uncertain. As many of you prepare for what’s next, we’re making one last push to remind Congress of what’s at stake.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel made it clear recently that the FCC is not willing to tackle funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) that is expiring in May 2024. She estimated that the FCC would have to add something like $9 to every broadband bill in the country to fund the ACP plan. However, states could pick up the ACP funding just for their state. States will have the authority to do this after the FCC approves the reinstitution of Title II authority this week.

Spectrum announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to 400 homes and small businesses in Charleston County (SC). Spectrum’s newly constructed fiber-optic network buildout in Charleston County is part of the company’s approximately $5 billion RDOF-related investment in unserved rural communities, partly offset by $1.2 billion in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction. The company’s RDOF expansion will provide broadband access to 1.3 million customer locations across 24 states in the coming years.

The U.S. Virgin Islands' Next Generation Network (viNGN) released the draft U.S. Virgin Islands Digital Equity Plan (USVIDEP) for public comment. Being disconnected from a connected world is not new to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

When the Federal Communications Commission ended the Obama Administration’s failed, two-year experiment with these heavy-handed regulations back in 2017, Title II advocates guaranteed that doing so would literally break the Internet.  They claimed that broadband prices would spike, that you would be charged for each website you visited, and that the Internet itself would slow down. None of this was true. Broadband speeds increased, prices decreased, competition intensified, and years of record-breaking infrastructure builds brought millions across the digital divide.

For decades, the United States has fashioned itself the champion of an open internet, arguing that the web should be largely unregulated and that digital data should flow around the globe unhindered by borders. The government has argued against internet censorship abroad and even funded software that lets people in autocratic states get around online content restrictions.

The Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority (PBDA) approved $204 million in Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP) grant awards to 53 projects in 42 counties across Pennsylvania that will connect 40,000 homes and businesses, bringing high-speed internet to over 100,000 Pennsylvanians. The grants, awarded to businesses and non-profits, will be matched by more than $200 million in private investment.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been tussling for roughly two decades over regulations that require internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally. And that battle is about to enter a new round. Chair Jessica Rosenworcel will lead her fellow Democrats to impose the rules, known as net neutrality, for the third time. A court overturned them when a Democratic-controlled FCC first voted to put them in place in 2010.