By Dave Williams | Capitol Beat News Service Feb 13, 2021
Feb 13, 2021
ATLANTA â Legislation that would tap into a new source of funding to expand broadband service in Georgia got some pushback this week from the telecom industry.
Senate Bill 65 would convert a portion of a state fund that now subsidizes land-line service provided by rural telephone companies into a pot of money to be used for broadband projects. That portion of the Universal Access Fund (UAF) is due to expire later this year, a decade after the fund was created.
Funds from the UAF would supplement the $20 million Gov. Brian Kemp set aside for broadband in the $26.5 billion mid-year budget the General Assembly passed on Thursday, said Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, the billâs chief sponsor.
05:37 | AMD Building Linux Team
In a recent report by Michael Larabel at Phoronix a site we’re happy to recommend for its Linux-specific benchmarks it was reported that AMD is growing its team of Linux developers. AMD currently has job listings for a Linux Kernel development manager, described on the AMD careers page as a mentor to a team of developers to enable design and implementation of “Linux operating system features supporting AMD CPUs.” The job lists responsibilities as including management of an engineering team “in the area of Linux kernel and KVM virtualization development.”
Other job listings on AMD’s jobs page include Linux Engineering for client devices, defined as “a key engineer on our team [who] configures and tunes Linux distribution packages to take advantage of AMD technologies on customer platforms.” They say that this role would participate in planning next generation CPUs and APUs, too.
Operator
Greetings, and welcome to Lumen Technologies fourth-quarter 2020 earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, February 10, 2021. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Valerie Finberg, vice president, investor relations. Please go ahead, Valerie.
Valerie Finberg
Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, France. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us for the Lumen Technologies fourth-quarter 2020 earnings call. Joining me on the call today are Jeff Storey, president and chief executive officer; and Neel Dev, executive vice president and chief financial officer. Before we begin, I need to call your attention to our safe harbor statement on Slide 2 of our 4Q 20 presentation which notes that this conference call may include forward-looking statements subject to certain risks and uncertainties.
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High-speed broadband internet service has transitioned from a luxury good to an increasingly necessary utility. Rural regions are particularly susceptible to poor broadband infrastructure coverage, however, because they pose a costly business case for providers. The economic case for rural broadband infrastructure, though, is compelling despite its cost: Broadband access and adoption in rural areas is linked to increased job and population growth, higher rates of new business formation and home values, and lower unemployment rates. Unlike with many other types of infrastructure, the long-run benefits of broadband access could grow exponentially, given the potential for innovation and productivity gains it provides.
SpaceX created a swarm of about thousand satellites that is circulating about 340 miles overhead, and building the constellation has put SpaceX in a "deep