The FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will meet at FCC headquarters June 26 starting at 1 p.m., said a notice for Tuesday’s Federal Register. This will be the final meeting of the current iteration of CSRIC. The current charter expires June 29.

"We're all kind of progressives on broadband now,” said Brookings senior fellow Blair Levin at the think tank’s livestreamed event Thursday. Levin said COVID-19 did more to persuade policymakers about high-speed internet’s importance than the national broadband plan he oversaw while at the FCC. Now Democratic and Republican governors alike are aggressive about expanding service, he said. Inflation and workforce issues mean the government may not connect as many people as it could have when the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was made law, said Levin: From an economic perspective, it may end up looking like the government wasted two years waiting for the FCC’s map.

NTIA awarded Guam, American Samoa and Northern Mariana Islands planning grants Wednesday for the broadband, equity, access and deployment program and Digital Equity Act. Guam received $1.25 million in BEAD funding, American Samoa $1.24 million and Northern Mariana Islands $1.25 million. Each territory received $150,000 in Digital Equity Act funding.

NTIA awarded nearly $5 million in additional tribal broadband connectivity program grants Wednesday. The latest round of funding will support "planning for future high-speed Internet infrastructure projects or promoting Internet use and adoption," said a news release. The agency said it will release a second notice of funding opportunity for additional program funding "in the next few months."

The FCC Wireline Bureau extended the service and equipment delivery deadlines for Emergency Connectivity Fund recipients, in an order Friday in docket 21-93. The bureau extended the service delivery deadline by 14 months for requests from first- and second-window applicants with a funding commitment decision letter, or revised funding commitment decision letters that were dated on or after July 1, 2022. The bureau also extended by 180 days the service delivery date for equipment funding requests with either letter dated on or after Jan. 1. The service delivery deadline for applicants from the third filing window was extended from Dec. 31 to June 30, 2024. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and Consortium for School Networking sought an extension in a petition filed in April (see 2304050075).

ZP Better Together launched a campaign Thursday urging the FCC to ensure video relay service users have "equal telecommunications rights." The #StandWithTheDeafCommunity campaign wants action on "geolocating for emergency services and having one phone number for both texting and calling," the video relay service provider said in a news release. It also launched a documentary film that highlights the "critical role that deaf and hard of hearing individuals play in shaping society and underscores the urgent need for communication equity."

The FCC committed more than $24 million in additional Emergency Connectivity Fund support Wednesday. The new funding will support 55 schools, five libraries, and one consortium from all three application windows, the agency said in a news release.

FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Debra Jordan advised public safety agencies Tuesday to get ready as hurricane and wildfire seasons approach. Jordan noted the work the FCC did to improve the delivery of outage information to public safety answering points (see 2211170051), update wireless priority service (WPS), government emergency telecommunications service (GETS) and other rules (see 2205190057) and the “many recent” commission “actions to make the nation’s emergency alerting systems a stronger tool for public safety officials to warn and protect their communities.” Everyone should “prepare now for communicating during emergencies, especially when the power is out,” Jordan said.

Policymakers should "take prompt steps to close loopholes that permit duplicate grants targeting a single area," wrote Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Andrew Long in a blog Monday. Long noted the FCC has until May 15 to release a broadband funding map highlighting areas where federal subsidies have been allocated for infrastructure deployment, saying "effective interagency coordination is essential" to ensuring funds are "used wisely." The broadband funding map and oversight efforts "will be hamstrung" until the Biden administration, Congress and agencies responsible for distributing federal subsidies act "to align program eligibility requirements so as to prevent overlapping grants targeting a single location due to technical variations buried in the fine print," Long said. A "key fact that many do not appreciate" is that "inconsistent eligibility requirements adopted by different programs" will open the door to "a single location receiving funding from multiple sources," he said.

NTIA released a new online tool and two reports highlighting federal investments in broadband programs Monday. The reports, mandated by the Access Broadband Act, include a description of the Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth's work, how many households were served by universal service programs or federal broadband support, and a "framework to guide future estimates of the economic impact of broadband deployment efforts," said a news release. The reports "show how federal agencies across the Biden-Harris Administration are working together to target funding through the Internet for All initiative and close the digital divide,” said NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson: “We will provide high-speed internet service to everyone by focusing on access, affordability and equity.” The report's findings included a substantial increase of $11.8 billion in investments from FY 2020 to FY 2021. More funding also went to digital inclusion or adoption efforts compared to infrastructure deployment and mapping. "This Broadband shift in outlays represents a change in priorities to connect underserved communities but also part of the maturation cycle as broadband investments begin to impact communities and economic activity," per the report. The dashboard includes spending data from 13 agencies and funding by program at the state level. It also reports tribal broadband funding for the first time. The dashboard showed tribal entities residing in Oklahoma received a "significant concentration" of funding, about 59.3% of total tribal broadband funding.