Last month, Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s telecom regulator, granted Amazon’s Kuiper Systems a license to provide low-Earth-orbit-based (LEO) broadband Internet in the country. The move places Kuiper systems in a rival position with the industry leader, and SpaceX subsidiary, Starlink Services. And while more specialized LEO broadband Internet interests are also emerging—in the public and private sectors—Ofcom’s decision signifies an important shift in consumer LEO Internet providers. The game is shifting, in other words, from a single-player to a multiplayer one.

Which is not to say, however, that the game today is evenly matched. As one analyst from Copenhagen-based Strand Consult recently put it in the industry publication Broadband Breakfast, Kuiper now is just “a burger bar, while [Starlink Services] runs an interstellar McDonald’s.”

In fact, “burger bar” is being charitable

A Trump takeover of Greenland could open the door to tech moguls’ mineral interests and their utopian aspirations.

resident Donald Trump started his second term with his sights set on Greenland.

When Trump first proposed buying the Arctic nation during his first administration, it was treated like a joke. But in a phone call last week with Denmark’s prime minister, who controls the autonomous territory’s foreign policy, the president doubled down on his efforts to seize power. In the “aggressive and confrontational” conversation, Trump threatened tariffs if he didn’t get his way. In a news conference earlier this month, he also refused to rule out the use of military force. Now, Denmark is taking him seriously: On Monday, they announced a $2 billion military expansion in the Arctic. 

Though the island is not for sale, the president emphasized Greenland’s importance to U.S. national security. Left unspoken: A U.S. takeover could weaken the country’s mining laws and ban on private property, aiding Trump donors’ plans to profit from the island’s mineral deposits and build a libertarian techno-city.

Trump, who has summarized his own natural resources policy as “drill, baby, drill,” would likely approach the island’s natural resources quite differently from Greenland’s current government, which has opposed large extractive projects. 

A leading artificial intelligence expert has rolled back his timeline for AI doom, saying it will take longer than he initially predicted for AI systems to be able to code autonomously and thus speed their own development toward superintelligence.

Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee of OpenAI, sparked an energetic debate in April by releasing AI 2027, a scenario that envisions unchecked AI development leading to the creation of a superintelligence, which – after outfoxing world leaders – destroys humanity.

The scenario rapidly won admirers and detractors. The US vice-president, JD Vance, appeared to reference AI 2027 in an interview last May when discussing the US’s artificial intelligence arms race with China. Gary Marcus, an emeritus professor of neuroscience at New York University, called the piece a “work of fiction” and various of its conclusions “pure science fiction mumbo jumbo”.

A former X exec who worked on Elon Musk’s embattled Grok chatbot got a “highly unusual” carveout to keep his company shares while working as the U.S. Patent Office’s “chief AI officer.”

Willmar City Council had planned to announce the broadband plans at Monday's council meeting. Instead, West Central Tribune reports... Consideration for awarding the bid for the Willmar Connect initiative was expected to be on the Willmar City Council agenda on Monday, Jan. 5, but that agenda item was again delayed. When asked why, City Operations Director Kyle Box explained…

Doug Dawson with CCG Consulting joins Curtis Dean and Jon Willow to discuss what he believes are the top 5 "turkeys" of the year in the broadband industry.

Doug blogs daily at https://potsandpansbyccg.com.

His "Turkey Awards" are available at https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2025/12/08/broadband-turkeys-of-2025/

As we kick off 2026, NDIA is proud to announce the release of our latest Impact Report, highlighting two years of progress from June 2023 through June 2025.

This period brought major shifts in funding, policy, and the broader digital inclusion landscape. Even amid uncertainty and change, NDIA and our national network of community-based organizations, advocates, and practitioners continued advancing digital equity. The Impact Report reflects how the field adapted, stayed resilient, and remained focused on ensuring all people have the access, skills, and support needed to fully participate in our digital world.

Washington, D.C. — Good Jobs First alerted Virginia taxpayers that the Commonwealth now officially reports that it lost $1.6 billion in sales and use tax revenues in FY 2025 to data centers. That is an increase of 118% from the previous year’s disclosure.

The revelation, in the state’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), is pasted at the end of this press release. It was disclosed pursuant to Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement No. 77 on Tax Abatement Disclosures, the landmark sunshine reform for which Good Jobs First led a national comment campaign in 2014-2015.

“Like 35 other states, Virginia is losing control of its spending by enacting virtually automatic sales and use tax exemptions, and sometimes other subsidies, for data center building materials and equipment,” said Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy. “That’s not to mention local property tax abatements.”

In a historic and somber development, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has announced that its Board of Directors has voted to formally dissolve the organization after more than five decades of service. The decision marks the closure of the private, nonprofit entity established by Congress in 1967 to oversee and distribute federal funding for […]

It’s the time of the year for New Year’s resolutions, and I asked some of my ISP clients if they are carrying unfinished tasks into the new year. Some of my clients laughed and told me that some of these tasks have been on their list for years. Some of the wish list ‘resolutions’ I…

Congress is moving to avoid another lapse in funding, but a freeze in welfare support to blue states shows what’s missing in the debate.

From flying to online shopping to using social media, everything seems to be getting worse. It’s all — pardon our language here — shittier.

According to today’s Lever Time guest, that’s no accident. Cory Doctorow is the author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. In this episode, Doctorow explains how enshittification works, how it’s infected our online spaces, and what we can do to stop it.

The demise of the coal industry left much of Appalachia in economic tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water, and depopulated communities across the coalfields of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. Now, in an ironic twist of the region’s energy history, tech companies and data center developers are eyeing these same rural landscapes with ambitious plans to power the artificial intelligence revolution.

From the hollows of Tucker County, West Virginia, to the former strip mines of Wise County, Virginia, proposals for massive data center complexes are sparking both hope and fierce resistance.

GoNetspeed is bringing state-of-the-art fiber internet connectivity to Newport. Construction is underway on a 100% fiber network that will deliver ultrafast internet to more than 8,200 homes and businesses.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which helped fund NPR, PBS and many local radio and TV stations — is officially shutting down, months after Congress passed spending cuts that stripped the organization of more than $1 billion in funding.

SpaceX's Starlink is offering free broadband internet service to the people of Venezuela through Feb. 3, amid the fallout of a U.S. military operation in the country.

The satellite internet provider said in a release on Sunday that service credits were being added to both active and inactive accounts as it monitored evolving conditions.