Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate on the Democrats’ 2024 presidential ticket, enters the national stage with a record of pro-rural broadband action but is largely a blank slate on other tech and telecom matters, observers said in interviews. Harris announced Walz as her pick Tuesday after a two-week vetting process in which other governors with stronger broadband policy backgrounds were in contention (see 2407260001). Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, has been a leading congressional advocate for injecting funding into the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program (see 2407150062).
DENVER -- States are marching ahead to meet requirements for NTIA’s $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program and trying to distribute money to subgrantees next year, state broadband directors said during the Mountain Connect conference Tuesday. They were optimistic about having enough money to connect everyone, though they cautioned that the technology used will vary. Don’t be afraid to use satellite connections, urged SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell in a keynote. “I don’t think the math works without Starlink.”
The FCC defended the Wireline Bureau's decision denying LTD Broadband's long-form application for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. LTD, which was the largest winning bidder, sought a reversal of the decision, claiming the FCC improperly denied its entire application. In a Monday reply brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (docket 24-1017), the commission said it "repeatedly stated that the bureau would perform an in-depth review of long-form applications" to consider the technical and financial information of winning bidders (see 2405090056).
CTIA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce backed AT&T’s challenge of the FCC's fine for data violations, filing amicus briefs in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On a 3-2 vote in April, commissioners imposed fines against the three major wireless carriers for allegedly not safeguarding data on customers' real-time locations years earlier (see 2404290044).
Telecom and banking groups urged that the FCC adopt proposed modifications to its letter of credit (LOC) rules for Universal Service Fund support recipients. Comments were posted Tuesday in docket 10-90 (see 2407030062). The commission proposed modifying LOC rules for its high-cost programs and Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II and Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support recipients.
FCC commissioners are expected to approve at Wednesday's open meeting, largely as circulated, a draft NPRM aimed at reducing unwanted AI robocalls. Industry officials active in the proceeding predicted few tweaks based on the limited number of ex parte filings in docket 23-362.
Google has a monopoly over general search services and acted as a monopolist, defending its dominance in violation of U.S. antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday (docket 1:20-cv-03010-APM).
States are using several approaches to prevailing wages in their broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) state plans, we found in our analysis of BEAD volume 2 initial plans. How a state considers prevailing wages in application reviews could possibly affect providers' participation in BEAD (see 2309080027) and 2403060005). NTIA has signed off on 31 BEAD volume 2s so far.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s Project 2025 ties likely won’t damage his chances of becoming the agency's chair if Donald Trump is elected president in November, even though the Trump campaign has distanced itself from the project (see 2407110054). Commissioner Nathan Simington is listed as a project adviser but didn’t write a chapter, as Carr did, or play a more public role.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., should bring up kids’ online safety legislation in September, Republican senators told us in interviews after the Senate's overwhelming passage of the measures last week.