Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images)
Share May 7, 2021 | STATESCOOP
A task force of legislators, local public officials and broadband experts will spend the next five months assessing the gaps in Alaska’s current broadband network, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced Thursday.
The Governor’s Task Force on Broadband Alaska’s third such commission in recent years, including similar task forces in 2014 and 2019 was ordered to meet once a month until October to study technologies, infrastructure and policies the state should implement to expand broadband access. This iteration of the task force will include commissioners in the state’s education and commerce agencies, representatives from the telecommunications industry, the Alaska Municipal league and several mayors, as well as representatives of the state’s rural school districts and native populations. A report of recommendations will be due Oct. 1, per Dunleavy’s or
The answer may be a little bit of both.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been quick to say the broadband access gap has been closed by his Broadband for All program, though many including state Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay disagree with Cuomo’s assessment. The governor is looking to boost broadband access by requiring private companies to provide a $15 rate so that low-income residents can have access to broadband internet.
There are pockets of Chautauqua County lagging behind in internet access according to a fall 2020 survey compiled by the state Education Department. The New York Civil Liberties Union recently filed a Freedom of Information Law request for the survey, which showed that more than 165,000 students in New York state (6%) lacked internet access. In Chautauqua County, 1,058 of the county’s 18,353 students (5.76%) had no access to internet. The same percentage of students had no access to a device to access the internet.
Paper: FCC Could Waste Up to $1B Due to Bad Map Data
A Competitive Carriers Association white paper details how the Federal Communications Commission awarded federal broadband funds to well-populated, well-off areas that may have existing high-speed Internet access.
May 07, 2021 •
Shutterstock It’s common knowledge that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has utilized misleading map data to measure broadband coverage and award funds, but critics don’t always cite how much taxpayer money is wasted as a result.
A Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) white paper released yesterday estimates the FCC could “improperly send” anywhere from $115 million to $1 billion to “wealthy, densely populated census blocks that have one or more service providers offering high-speed broadband.”
Hickenlooper hears obstacles with improving broadband in Southwest Colorado the-journal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from the-journal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Numerous people called into the 2News newsroom to find out what it was.
So what was it. Airplanes? Aliens? Space lasers? Um, no.
It turns out, the stars were actually satellites from SpaceX s Starlink Mission.
The bright dots in the sky were approximately 175 miles above the surface of the Earth. They appear bright due to their solar array reflecting sunlight back to the dark side of the globe.
According to SpaceX, the project hopes to one day provide satellite-based broadband internet to users around the globe through an array of low Earth-orbiting satellites.
Back in November, SpaceX launched Starlink s second mission, sending 60 satellites into space on the same rocket. Now, they re slowly moving into their final orbits.