Last night, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that could potentially leverage spectrum sharing technology to help close the digital divide.

Today, Public Knowledge joins 39 other public interest, government, civil rights, labor, higher education, and rural advocacy groups in a letter urging Congress to offer a federal broadband subsidy in forthcoming COVID-19 stimulus packages.

Today, House Democrats announced “The Moving Forward Act,” a massive infrastructure bill funding broadband deployment as well as the building of roads, bridges, housing, rail, and clean energy services.

Today, the House Energy & Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee marked up the “Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act (Broadband DATA Act).” The bill would improve broadband mapping data accuracy at the Federal Communications Commission. Public Knowledge supports requiring the FCC to collect more granular data to generate more accurate and detailed broadband maps.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve a Report and Order to make changes to its Priority Access Licenses in the 3.5 GHz Band (3550-3700 MHz). Today’s action needlessly rolls back a unanimous 5-0 Commission vote from April 2015 and is counterproductive to helping the agency achieve its stated goal of closing the rural digital divide.

Today, Public Knowledge joined 20 rural advocacy organizations, rural healthcare providers, rural network operators, and public interest advocates in a letter urging Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to preserve the existing Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS) rules that enable small providers to offer service in rural areas.

Today, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Congressman David B. McKinley (R-WV) introduced the Broadband Conduit Deployment Act of 2018, which is substantially identical to the 2015 bill of the same name.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to roll back portions of the agency’s 2015 3.5GHz licensing Order. Public Knowledge contends that this short-sighted policy making is completely unsupported by the record developed in multiple proceedings and undermines years of work to promote innovative and efficient use of limited spectrum resources.

Today, Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Cory Gardner (R-CO) introduced the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum, or “AIRWAVES,” Act. The bill establishes a pipeline to move federal spectrum into commercial use, ensuring significant capacity for both exclusive use (“licensed”) spectrum and shared use (“unlicensed”) spectrum.

Today, Microsoft announced the launch of its Rural Airband Initiative to bring high-speed broadband to 2 million people in rural America. The Airband Initiative relies on the TV white spaces (TVWS), an open spectrum technology similar to Wi-Fi (sometimes called “super Wi-Fi”).