Two top Senate Communications Subcommittee members told us they intend to focus on NTIA’s rollout of $48 billion in connectivity money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act during the subpanel’s upcoming NTIA oversight hearing. Senate Communications Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., indicated interest in talking about NTIA’s recent notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) for the $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program (see 2205130054).

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) doesn’t mind if a federal privacy law preempts the proposed Colorado Privacy Act as long as it's “as good as what we have” and gives state attorneys general the authority to protect consumers, he said Wednesday at the Mountain Connect Broadband Development Conference. Weiser also discussed digital literacy, broadband infrastructure and consumer protection, and blamed the need for individual state laws on a broken federal system.

NTIA has a “keen interest in making sure that there's strong oversight” on how the $42.5 billion broadband, equity, access and deployment program is spent, said Administrator Alan Davidson Tuesday during a Mountain Connect conference in Colorado (see 2205130054). The agency “left flexibility” in its notice of funding opportunity, Davidson said, but included “basic requirements” on accountability, subgrantees and affordability to ensure that “federal money is being spent wisely,” he said: “We tried to take the principle of if it didn’t need to be in the notice, it’s not there.”

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

Citing the need to modernize the FCC's high cost USF programs and align them with recent federal broadband investments through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, commissioners on Thursday unanimously adopted an NPRM seeking comment on an Alternative Connect America Cost Model (ACAM) Broadband Coalition proposal extending the program. The proposal would increase deployment obligations in exchange for additional funding, and seeks comment on whether to extend participation to carriers that haven't already been participating in the program.

State telecom industry groups seek to stop LTD Broadband from receiving promised Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) funding in Minnesota and South Dakota. The efforts to deny eligible telecom carrier (ETC) status to the company are the latest in a growing number of state hurdles LTD faces as it tries to secure funding it preliminarily won from FCC auction. Some said the situation shows state ETC designation review’s value, but former Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said the process isn’t working.

NTIA released notices of funding opportunity Friday for applicants interested in its broadband, equity, access and deployment, middle-mile grant, and state digital equity planning grant programs funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The agency cited “end-to-end fiber-optic architecture” as priority broadband projects and encouraged states to give the greatest consideration to subgrantees committed to providing 1 Gbps services at an affordable rate as part of the BEAD program.

Multistate broadband internet access service (BIAS) providers are facing challenges navigating the federal and state grant processes for the growing array of digital divide grant and subsidy programs, though some foresee that forest getting easier to navigate. We were told the complexity of applications could put a chill on the number of providers applying. Sizable attention will be paid to how detailed the NTIA guidance is on the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program established by the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), they said.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and some Senate Commerce Committee members used a Wednesday hearing on the Commerce Department's FY 2023 budget goals (see 2204210059) as a platform to press Congress to quickly reach agreement marrying elements of the House-passed America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act (HR-4521) and Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260). Committee members also pressed Raimondo on NTIA’s plans for distributing $48 billion in broadband money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and how to improve interagency spectrum coordination.

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: