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Starlink and other ISPs took advantage of broken FCC system, researcher says.

By Jon Brodkin Dec 14, 2020 | Original Ars Technica article here.

The Federal Communications Commission last week awarded $9.2 billion to 180 broadband providers, saying the money will bring Internet access to 5.2 million "unserved" homes and businesses in rural areas across the United States. But consumer advocates say they’ve found major problems in the FCC’s funding choices, such as sending money to wealthy urban areas that are adjacent to high-speed networks. SpaceX is among the biggest beneficiaries of the funding decisions that have drawn criticism.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is "subsidiz[ing] broadband for the rich," according to the title of an analysis last week by Derek Turner, research director at advocacy group Free Press. Turner has a strong track record analyzing FCC broadband data and last year found major errors in Pai’s broadband-deployment claims.

Pai’s priority seems to be "closing the golf-course and parking-lot digital divide," Turner wrote. The FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund — despite its name — is devoting a significant portion of its money to urban and suburban areas, he wrote. While there are broadband shortages in urban areas, Turner argues that some of the FCC money is going to urban areas that existing cable or fiber ISPs could serve with just minor extensions of their existing networks.

The $9.2 billion for all ISPs is being distributed over 10 years, making the annual payout $920 million.

Continue reading “SpaceX Won Rural FCC Funding in Surprising Places, Like Major Airports”

By Karl Bode Dec 14, 2020 | Original Techdirt article here.

The FCC last week held a reverse auction to dole out $9 billion to, purportedly, improve patchy U.S. broadband service. But consumer groups say the auction did nothing of the sort, instead delivering $9 billion to a dodgy roster of companies with existing histories of fraud that will be using much of the funds to expand broadband to affluent areas where broadband is often already available.

The reverse auction involved doling out billions from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), paid into via Universal Service Fund (USF) contributions affixed to your broadband and phone bills. To be very clear: some of this money will absolutely help shore up access in underserved communities. But after digging into the FCC maps of the winning bidders, consumer groups like Free Press say something ugly is afoot.

The group found a long list of examples where companies got millions of dollars to dole out broadband to a handful of wealthy homes in affluent areas, many of which already have service:

Continue reading “The FCC Just Blew $9 Billion To Deliver Broadband To Already Served Rich People”

5,000 wireless routers are to be given to qualifying Tucsonans in need of wireless access.

   

By: Megan Meier Dec 11, 2020 | Original report here.

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Collin Boyce, who works in the City of Tucson’s IT Department, dreamed of this announcement back in March. That was in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it became clear that life would have to move forward from home.

"We made a partnership to build this enormous network that would normally take a year to do, in three months," said Boyce.

The city now has the capability to bring wireless access to 30-50% of Tucson’s most populated areas. The best part is, it’s free.

"We wanted to build an application process where we can vet the needs of the community. A citizen will go there. They’ll enter their information on the website. Once they enter their information and contact information, it will verify that they are in the coverage area," said Boyce.

The city has 5,000 routers to give to the community.

To qualify, there are some rules. An applicant must meet the following criteria:

• Lives within wireless coverage area
• Over 18-years-old as of October 31, 2020
• Experienced a financial hardship due to COVID-19

Applicants must also meet one of the following household requirements:

• K-12 or College student that participates in remote learning at least one day per week
• 60-years-old or older
• Has a health condition that increases risk for COVID-19

Continue reading “Free Wireless Access For Specific Tucson Households”

By Adam Liptak Dec. 11, 2020 | Original New York Times article here.

The suit, filed directly in the Supreme Court, sought to bar Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from casting their electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The Supreme Court received more than a dozen friend-of-the-court briefs and motions seeking to intervene

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a lawsuit by Texas that had asked the court to throw out the election results in four battleground states that President Trump lost in November, ending any prospect that a brazen attempt to use the courts to reverse his defeat at the polls would succeed.

The court, in a brief unsigned order, said Texas lacked standing to pursue the case, saying it “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”

The order, coupled with another one on Tuesday turning away a similar request from Pennsylvania Republicans, signaled that a conservative court with three justices appointed by Mr. Trump refused to be drawn into the extraordinary effort by the president and many prominent members of his party to deny his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his victory.

Continue reading “US Supreme Court Rejects Texas Suit Challenging Presidential Election”

The engagement was called off last year after the U.S. purportedly objected

By Breck Dumas, Dec 9, 2020 | Original The Blaze article here.

A trove of documents obtained by Canada’s Rebel News Network show that the Canadian armed forces planned several exercises with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army last year, including a "winter survival training" at a military base in Ontario, which borders the United States.

The engagement was called off by Canada’s chief of defense staff, a decision that received pushback from the country’s Global Affairs department who voiced concern that the cancellation might damage relations between Ottawa and Beijing.

What are the details?

Ezra Levant, the founder of Rebel News, tweeted Wednesday,

"The biggest scoop I’ve ever had in my life. Trudeau invited Chinese troops to learn winter warfare tactics at the Canadian Forces Base [Garrison Petawawa] — 34 unredacted pages of cowardice and appeasement towards China, hostility towards America."

Garrison Petawawa is located in Ontario, which borders the U.S. states of New York, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

The documents cited by Levant may be viewed at thechinafiles.com. Rebel News reports that the Canadian government provided the records in response to a request from the outlet after it sought to corroborate "a Russian report that Canada had sent a delegation to China for the 70th anniversary celebrations for the [People’s Liberation Army] Navy" — just months after two Canadians were arrested in China following Canada’s arrest of Huawei DFO Meng Wanzhou, who the U.S. has accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran.

The documents, marked SECRET//CANADIAN EYES ONLY, show details of several engagements set for 2019 that had been "potentially paused," including the winter training in Ontario, along with meetings between Canadian and Chinese officers on military education and defense coordination at the "1-star or 2-star level" on Canadian soil.

The Globe and Mail, Canada’s newspaper of record, also reviewed the documents, and noted that Canada’s Global Affairs department objected to Canada’s defense chief scaling back exercises with China’s military, reporting that

"the United States had raised concerns about joint military exercises that could benefit the PLA. The outlet pointed to a February 2019 memo sent by then-Canadian deputy minister of foreign affairs, Ian Shugart, who wrote to the country’s deputy minister of defense, "Should Canada make any significant reductions in its military engagement with China, China will likely read this as a retaliatory move related to the Meng Wanzhou case."

Continue reading “Canada planned Winter Training for Chinese Troops Next Door to US, Documents Show”

By Jon Brodkin Dec 8, 2020 | Original Ars Technical article here.

Senate confirms “wholly unqualified” Republican to prevent Democratic majority.

   

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, two of the FCC’s three Republicans, talk before the start of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on August 16, 2018.

The Republican-controlled US Senate today confirmed a Trump nominee to the Federal Communications Commission, ensuring that President-elect Joe Biden’s FCC will be deadlocked at 2-2 upon his inauguration. The Senate voted along party lines to confirm Nathan Simington, a Trump administration official who helped draft a petition asking the FCC to make it easier to sue social media companies like Facebook and Twitter. Democrats say he is unqualified for the position.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote on Twitter today.

"During his confirmation hearing even the most basic questions about FCC issues seemed to trip up Nathan Simington. It’s clear he is wholly unqualified to help lead this agency."

Shortly after noon today, the Senate voted 49-47 to end debate on the Simington nomination. At about 5pm, the Senate confirmed the nomination by a vote of 49-46. Simington’s nomination was previously advanced to the Senate floor in a 14-12 vote by the Senate Commerce Committee.

Trump nominated Simington to replace Republican Michael O’Rielly after O’Rielly declined to support the president’s attempted crackdown on social media websites. With Chairman Ajit Pai set to leave the commission on January 20, 2021, upon Biden’s inauguration, Simington’s confirmation will prevent the Biden FCC from having a 2-1 Democratic majority in January. (O’Rielly would have had to leave the commission at the end of 2020 even if Simington hadn’t been confirmed today.)

Biden should eventually get a 3-2 majority, but only after the Senate confirms whoever Biden nominates to the third Democratic slot.

Continue reading “Republicans Clinch 2-2 Deadlock for Biden FCC as Senate Approves Trump Nominee”

By S. Derek Turner, Dec 9, 2020 | Original Free Press article here.

Original photo by Flickr user Gage Skidmore

The Pai FCC took a victory lap this week when it announced the results of a $9.2-billion reverse auction that is supposed to bring broadband to over 5.2 million unserved homes and businesses. This Universal Service Fund (USF) effort, fitted with its own funny acronym, “RDOF” — the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund — is a continuation of the broadband reforms to the USF started by the Obama-era FCC.

Announcing the winning bidders, Pai said:

“I’m thrilled with the incredible success of this auction, which brings welcome news to millions of unconnected rural Americans who for too long have been on the wrong side of the digital divide . . . We aimed for maximum leverage of taxpayer dollars and for networks that would meet consumers’ increasing broadband needs, and the results show that our strategy worked. This auction was the single largest step ever taken to bridge the digital divide and is another key success for the Commission in its ongoing commitment to universal service.”

As they say, emphasis added — though Pai has never been shy about adding his own self-congratulatory emphasis, wrongly taking credit for things that he had no impact on or for his supposed “accomplishments” based on nothing but bogus data.

Here, though, it’s worth asking: Did the Pai FCC get it right, the way he’s claimed? Is this $9.2 billion in ratepayer dollars being allocated in the most efficient way possible? (It’s ratepayers, not taxpayers: USF funds don’t come out of our progressive tax system, but a regressive fee system applied to users’ bills.)

Is this funding solely helping to bring broadband to people living in “unconnected rural” areas? Is Pai’s closing effort here even a success on his own terms?

We took a look, setting aside for the moment our even deeper questions about this rural-first focus. Rural areas are worthy of support, but always get the lion’s share of the government’s attention, even though there are far more low-income people — in both urban and rural settings — who have access to broadband already but still don’t subscribe.

Continue reading “Fiber to the Clubhouse: Pai Subsidizes Broadband for the Rich”

By Karl Bode, Dec 8, 2020 | Original Motherboard article here.

Nathan Simington was chosen to attack free speech and net neutrality. He could gridlock internet policy for the next five years.

The Senate today voted 49-47 along party lines to move forward with an unqualified Trump ally to the FCC for a five-year term. It’s an aggressive move by the GOP experts say will not only help Trump attack free speech online, but could mire the Biden FCC in partisan gridlock for years. A final vote is expected later Tuesday. Trump picked Nathan Simington who has no experience whatsoever when it comes to Telecom or consumer protection.

What Simington does have is the willingness to pursue Trump’s heavily-criticized plan to use the FCC to undermine Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation say is essential to protecting free speech online.

While Trump claims attacking the law will thwart the nonexistent “censorship” of Conservatives on social media, the real goal appears to be to thwart the policing of disinformation by social media giants. But experts have spent months pointing out in elaborate detail how attacking the law will result in corporations being more likely to censor user content, not less.

It’s a dumb idea opposed by a broad, bipartisan coalition of experts. And while Simington’s effort to attack the law will be an uphill climb in the wake of Trump’s defeat, even Conservative telecom policy experts say Simington could make a mess of the court system as it tries to deal with lawsuits related to social media content moderation.

Continue reading “The GOP Is Jamming Through the Appointment of Unqualified Trump Ally to The FCC”

Charter also wins big; FCC fund will bring Broadband Service to 5.2 million homes and businesses.

By Jon Brodkin, Dec 7, 2020 | Original Ars Technica article here.

SpaceX has been awarded $885.51 million by the Federal Communications Commission to provide Starlink broadband to 642,925 rural homes and businesses in 35 states — $1,377 of tax payer assistance per location.

The satellite provider was one of the biggest winners in the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, the results of which were released today. Funding is distributed over 10 years, so SpaceX’s haul will amount to a little over $88.5 million per year.

Charter Communications, the second-largest US cable company after Comcast, did even better. Charter is set to receive $1.22 billion over 10 years to bring service to 1.06 million homes and businesses in 24 states — $1,151 of tax payer assistance per location.

FCC funding can be used in different ways depending on the type of broadband service. Cable companies like Charter and other wireline providers generally use the money to expand their networks into new areas that don’t already have broadband. But with Starlink, SpaceX could theoretically provide service to all of rural America once it has launched enough satellites, even without FCC funding.

Continue reading “SpaceX Gets $886 Million from FCC to Subsidize Starlink in 35 States”

Report Points to Microwave ‘Attack’ as Likely Source of Mystery Illnesses That Hit Diplomats and Spies

By Ana Swanson and Edward Wong, Dec 5, 2020 | Original New York Times article here.

A government-commissioned report provides the most definitive explanation yet for “Havana syndrome,” which struck scores of American employees, first in Cuba and then in China, Russia and other countries.

Many government employees afflicted by the illness, which was first disclosed in Havana, suffered from dizziness, fatigue, headaches, and loss of hearing, memory and balance. Credit Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The most probable cause of a series of mysterious afflictions that sickened American spies and diplomats abroad in the past several years was pulsed, Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has concluded in a report.

The conclusion by a committee of 19 experts in medicine and other fields cited “directed, pulsed radiofrequency [microwave radiation] energy” as “the most plausible mechanism” to explain the illness, which came to be known as Havana syndrome, though they said that they could not rule out other possible causes and that secondary factors may have contributed to symptoms, according to a copy of the report obtained by The New York Times.

The report, which was commissioned by the State Department, provides the most definitive explanation yet of the illness that struck scores of government employees, first at the U.S. Embassy in Havana in 2016, and then in China and other countries. Many of the officers suffered from dizziness, fatigue, headaches, and loss of hearing, memory and balance, and some were forced into permanent retirement.

C.I.A. officers visiting overseas stations also experienced similar symptoms, The Times and GQ magazine reported in October. The officers were traveling to discuss countering Russia covert operations with foreign intelligence agencies, a fact that adds to suspicions that Moscow is behind the episodes.

Though couched in careful, scientific language, the new report reveals strong evidence that the incidents were the result of a malicious attack. It attributes the illnesses to “directed” and “pulsed” — rather than “continuous” — energy, implying that the victims’ exposure was targeted and not the result of more common sources of microwave energy, such as, for example, a cellphone.

It also said the committee found the immediate symptoms that patients reported — including strange sensations of pain, pressure and sound that often appeared to emanate from a particular direction, or occurred in a specific spot in a room — were more consistent with a directed “attack” of radiofrequency energy.

Continue reading “NY Times: Microwave Radiation Attacks”