 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
This week the backlash against data centers, especially hyperscalers to power frontier AI models, intensified. Things are so bad that the right-leaning Wall Street Journal and left-leaning New York Times both are devoting front page coverage to the issue. And the backlash against data is bipartisan. People on both the right and the left are organizing to voice their opposition to data centers in their communities. WSJ reads:
Podcast: Powering Politics: A Conversation with Astra Taylor, Robinson Meyer, and Nicholas Rabb Publisher: Boston Review Date: August 17, 2026 Speakers: Robinson Meyer — founding executive editor, Heatmap News, and contributing opinion writer, The New York Times; Nicholas Rabb — organizer, No Data Center Monterey Park, and postdoctoral researcher, Eco-STEM Project, California State University, Los Angeles; Astra Taylor — writer, activist, and documentarian Moderator: Lily Hu — Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Yale University, and contributing editor, Boston Review This Boston Review panel examined the rapidly growing movement against hyperscale AI data centers, its unusual ideological breadth, and its political implications ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The discussion connected local concerns about electricity, water, pollution, noise, secrecy, and land use with broader opposition to AI, corporate power, surveillance, and the loss of democratic control. The panelists agreed that the backlash creates a significant organizing opportunity, but cautioned that it will not automatically produce a coherent progressive movement.
In past decades, voice communication was the primary way people connected across distances. Over that time, communications policy in the United States centered on ensuring that voice service was available, affordable and reliable for every American. NTCA members got their start in this era – answering the call to provide voice service to the most rural and remote corners of the country when Ma Bell decided the business case didn’t justify investment or operations there. But times have changed. Broadband now enables the majority of communications, carrying massive amounts of data of all kinds nearly instantaneously. NTCA members have stayed on top of this evolution as well, transforming radically from the telephone companies of the last century into some of the most innovative internet service providers of the 21st century. Despite serving areas where the average density is fewer than seven locations per mile – roughly the average density of Montana – nearly 90% of their customers on average are connected by fiber, and 80% have access to Gigabit-level connections.
Authors: Alex Karras & Michael Santorelli - Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute, New York Law School Published: August 18, 2026 Source: Broadband Expanded Overview Alex Karras and Michael Santorelli examine how the cost and promised reach of two New York broadband initiatives have changed since their projects were first announced: the Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP) and the Affordable Housing Connectivity Program (AHCP). Between them, the two programs have committed more than $300 million in federal Capital Projects Fund (CPF) money and state funds to broadband construction and to connections in affordable housing. The Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute (ACLP) catalogued 34 projects — 22 MIP and 12 AHCP awards — from July 2024 through July 2026. Three movements recur across the portfolio, the authors find: grant amounts adjusted upward, promised coverage adjusted downward, and a climbing price for each connection delivered. Ten projects across the two programs have had their grant revised up by at least 5% since first announced, against seven revised down. Those upward revisions add roughly $38 million to what the programs will cost in combination. Promised reach over the same period dropped by about 34,000 locations and households.
This week in “What’s New in Digital Equity” — our weekly look at government digital equity and broadband news — we have a number of interesting items, which you can jump to with the links below: .
Traditional telecommunications spent a century burying glass and steel underground. SpaceX is routing the entire planet through the vacuum of space and the legacy giants are dangerously unprepared. For nearly a century, the telecommunications industry enjoyed what Warren Buffett calls an impenetrable economic moat. If you wanted to build a national telecom network, you didn’t just need capital. You needed bureaucratic leverage, thousands of municipal permits, armies of trench-diggers, and billions of dollars in CAPEX (capital expenditure) to lay down fiber-optic cables and erect steel cell towers. Once those cables were buried beneath asphalt and farmland, the incumbent operators — the AT&Ts, Verizons, Vodafones, and Deutsche Telekoms of the world — sat comfortably behind their physical moats, printing cash. They operated like regional fiefdoms. If a rural town of 2,000 people was ten miles away from the main fiber trunk, the math was brutal: It is economically unviable to connect you. Deal with dial-up. Legacy telcos assumed this equation was permanent. They calculated that the cost of physical infrastructure per subscriber would always protect them from any sudden, radical disruption.
New York quietly widened the price tag on its two flagship broadband grant programs by roughly $38 million over the past two years — while cutting the number of homes and businesses those same programs promise to connect by about 34,000, according to an analysis published August 18 by the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute (ACLP) at New York Law School.
ConnectALL, the state broadband office overseeing the money, did not announce any of the revisions. ACLP says it found them buried in Empire State Development board meeting packets. New York has committed more than $300 million in federal Capital Projects Fund money and state funds to two programs: the Municipal Infrastructure Program (MIP), which funds open-access municipal fiber networks, and the Affordable Housing Connectivity Program (AHCP), which funds connectivity in affordable housing developments. ACLP director Michael Santorelli and researcher Alex Karras tracked all 34 awards issued under the two programs — 22 MIP, 12 AHCP — from July 2024 through July 2026, cross-referencing every dollar figure and location count against its original announcement.
Nine PBS is afraid that it will lose over 70 years of archival materials and programming after its contracted cloud storage vendor has apparently gone out of business. According to Current, the channel used Open Source Storage, or OSS, for storing over 50TB of data — but it suddenly lost access to its data earlier this year. Nine PBS has been working with OSS and its predecessor since 2019 and intended to renew its contract on March 6 of this year. The company never responded and abruptly cut off the station’s data access even though it still had 30 days to retrieve its data after the contract ended. The station dug a little bit deeper when it discovered that the OSS website no longer existed and was listed as delinquent under the Colorado Secretary of State. It also discovered that OSS utilized Iron Mountain’s services, so it sent a demand letter to the latter to preserve its data and to "pay any reasonable costs associated with its demand." At the time, Iron Mountain did not confirm or deny that it possessed Nine PBS’ data. At the same time, the channel also sued OSS and its leadership, which it paused after someone who claimed to be a "managing partner of the group that officially acquired" the company reached out.
I continue to be both unimpressed and concerned with the direction of the Federal Communications Commission. Increasingly, I think the agency has lost sight of what broadband policy is supposed to accomplish for the public. Since LinkedIn In doesn't have a rant button, I'm going to settle for writing an article. The latest example is the decision to eliminate the FCC's long-term goal of 1 Gbps down / 500 Mbps up, a target I already considered somewhat anemic for a long-term infrastructure goal. To be clear, I don't believe every household needs a gigabit connection today. A reliable 300 Mbps connection can serve a lot of people extremely well, at the moment. I say this as someone currently paying for 2 Gbps symmetrical fiber and contemplating 8 Gbps because well..... I want to. Most people do not need that kind of connection today, but that's not the point
Following ABC’s lawsuit against the FCC to stop an early license renewal process for eight affiliated stations, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) released the following statement from ITIF Policy Analyst Ellis Scherer.
The FCC's 2026 Section 706 Report finds that 96.9% of Americans have access to terrestrial fixed broadband at 100/20 Mbps as fiber, fixed wireless, 5G and satellite infrastructure expand. The Federal Communications Commission has determined that high-speed broadband is being deployed across the United States at a “reasonable and timely” pace, with the agency’s latest data showing substantial gains in 100/20 Mbps fixed broadband availability, rural coverage, 5G deployment and consumer choice. The newly published FCC 2026 Section 706 Report finds that 96.9% of Americans now have access to fixed terrestrial broadband at speeds of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream. From June 2024 to June 2025, the number of Americans without access to that service level fell approximately 23%, while the two-year decline was approximately 43%. The infrastructure mix is also becoming more diverse.
I didn’t know that August 20 marked the one-year anniversary of Arielle Roth becoming the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator. Facebook didn’t remind me, scores of my broadband connections didn’t call it out on LinkedIn, and most importantly, Gary Bolton didn’t send me a gift to commemorate the occasion. (Come on man, what do I have to do for you to see me?!?! 🤣) An August 20 press release from the NTIA runs down all of the accomplishments that Roth’s tenure has brought about. Spectrum being made available for commercial use, advancing America’s tech leadership (USA, USA!), public safety comms reforms, and ‘delivering results with discipline and accountability’ were all highlighted within sections in said release. And, of course, it wouldn’t be an Arielle Roth communication without addressing her concerns about ‘excessive screen time in schools.’ The release stated that the…
The Federal Communications Commission last week eliminated the gigabit speed goal established during the Biden administration and declared that current levels of broadband deployment in the US are acceptable. Though fiber networks have routinely offered such speeds for years, the FCC said the gigabit speed goal is not “technologically neutral,” suggesting that it isn’t fair to other, slower technologies. In 2024, the FCC raised its broadband benchmark to 100Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream, setting the new standard by which to judge whether deployment is reasonable and timely. The FCC at the time also set a long-term speed goal of 1Gbps download speeds paired with 500Mbps upload speeds, saying it would use the goal “as a guidepost for evaluating our efforts to encourage deployment.” Republican Brendan Carr, who is now the FCC chairman, never liked that long-term goal. He proposed abolishing it last year, and the change was finalized on August 14 in the FCC’s latest broadband deployment report. The reports are mandated by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act.
|
MPR reports… A proposal to turn the defunct Minnesota Star Tribune printing plant, one of the few remaining industrial sites in downtown Minneapolis, into a data center has become a contentious and defining issue in the neighborhood. The Minnesota Design Center and the North Loop Neighborhood Association on Saturday reviewed three sessions of community input collected at a series of workshops last week from more than a thousand Minneapolis residents. And the first public presentation about the developer’s plans for the site met strong public opposition Wednesday night. Hundreds of residents spilled out the doors of the North Loop Neighborhood Association’s meeting room, across the street from the plant.
On 14 August 2026, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a broadband report indicating that it will abandon the gigabit‑speed goal that had been set during the previous administration. The goal, set in 2024, had aimed for nationwide gigabit (1000 Mbps) download and half‑gigabit (500 Mbps) upload speeds. In the report, the FCC explained that ‘At present, it is impossible to predict long‑term technological developments and the evolution of consumer preferences.’ The commission argued that this uncertainty makes a long‑term national speed target untenable.
A recent court ruling holds good news for digital skills advocates, signaling that $1.25 billion in Digital Equity Act funding is back on the table. NSC Senior Government Affairs Manager Caroline Treschitta and Senior Fellow Amanda Bergson-Shilcock explain what happened, and what it means for skills advocates.
I've spent the better part of a lifetime studying and writing about the way corrupted lawmakers and U.S. telecom giants work hand in hand to erode U.S. broadband standards and mapping so they can obscure the way corruption and monopoly result in limited broadband competition -- resulting in shitty, expensive, spotty, and slow U.S. internet access (check out my Techdirt/Copia paper about it). The Trump administration has certainly been no exception. After some modest improvements in broadband mapping and standards made possible by the 2021 infrastructure bill, the Trump administration has been working overtime to revert things right back to the status quo (read: shitty and broken).
The National League of Cities has launched an interactive resource to boost transparency around how local governments are responding to data center development. It will be updated regularly. The Data Center Local Action Tracker, launched Wednesday, is an interactive resource displaying local government actions related to data center development, from zoning ordinances to community benefits agreements.
As data center expansion continues, so do public concerns about energy demand and water consumption. Residents are looking to local governments to ensure these large developments benefit their communities, and governments can require developers to deliver. Some governments have gone so far as to enact moratoriums on new data center developments; New York established a statewide pause in July.
The rules that built Silicon Valley weren’t written to build Silicon Valley. The Pentagon wanted a guidance computer, a federal judge wanted to settle a case against a telephone monopoly, and a California legislature in 1872 had farmers and railroads in mind. Together they produced the conditions for an industry, and this is the account of how, running from the land grant the railroad magnate, Leland Stanford, signed in 1885 to the two governments that now write the rules for the companies training frontier models. SAN FRANCISCO, August 20, 2026 — Silicon Valley, a metonym for the behemoth technology industry of the San Francisco Bay Area, is usually explained by its people: the garages, the dropouts, and the founders. What does not get mentioned are the statutes, the court rulings, and the agencies that first created it. The legal mechanisms, in themselves, weren’t destined to produce what would follow; they set the conditions. Innovation and investment has compounded ever since, from missile guidance to the Internet to the AI boom. The most recent of them, artificial intelligence, took in $211 billion of venture capital in 2025, about three-fifths of every venture dollar invested worldwide. The valley’s tech industry began, of all things, with a real estate problem at Stanford University and a procurement problem at the Pentagon. Stanford had 8,800 acres it could not sell, and the Pentagon wanted wartime electronics no company had built yet. Neither problem was targeted at building an industry.
Over the past few weeks, I have been doing some soul-searching regarding telecom network automation. If you have read my recent LinkedIn posts, you know I am constantly looking for the line between actual operational reality and the endless stream of industry marketing. The market is flooded with promises of “zero-touch operations” and fully autonomous networks. Yet, anyone who has worked with real-world telecom infrastructure knows that dropping an AI model on top of a fragmented legacy stack does not suddenly make the network autonomous. Recently, my former Google colleague Gabriele Di Piazza, who leads Product Management, Alliances and Architectures at Blue Planet, shared some deep technical blueprints and operational data from their field deployments. Reviewing those materials gave me a chance to step back, compile my key learnings, and synthesize what actually works versus where the industry is fooling itself. When you go into the rabbit hole of automating a multi-vendor, multi-domain network, it is clear to me that most operators are doing network automation wrong.
- The FCC is taking comments on the E-Rate program
- Early commenters are afraid the FCC will reduce funding to the program
- Concurrent with the FCC’s review of E-Rate, a non-profit group is challenging the program in court
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has opened a comment period related to the E-Rate program, which provides funding for internet access at eligible schools and libraries, with subsidy levels tied to poverty rates. Advocates of E-Rate are concerned because FCC Chairman Brendan Carr seems inclined toward revisions to the program. School and library leaders from across the country are really concerned the FCC will cut E-Rate funding, which they say is absolutely critical.
Amazon's Prime Air drones are set to reach nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns this year, 13 years after Jeff Bezos unveiled the idea on 60 Minutes. Also on this week's episode: John Cook's visit inside Anduril's unmarked Bellevue office, and how a reporter's AirTag led to a secret Amazon facility where old books are cut apart and scanned.
A federal judge in Texas has refused to dismiss a massive fraud lawsuit against Elon Musk, ruling that his controversial million-dollar voter payout scheme may have been deliberately rigged. The illusion of a random lottery shatters as the world's richest man faces a legal reckoning over his controversial political giveaways. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive desperately tried to have the case thrown out through a motion for summary judgment, but US District Judge Robert Pitman categorically denied that request in an order filed on Monday. This pivotal ruling on Tuesday allows an Arizona voter's proposed class-action lawsuit to officially advance, potentially representing more than one million hopeful petition signers who thought they were entering a legitimate lottery.
Paramount and the California A.G. officials are set to meet Monday for settlement discussions on the lawsuit blocking the Warner Bros. Discovery sale.
A federal judge in July gave digital equity advocates a partial victory against President Donald Trump, stopping his attempt to unilaterally kill a multibillion-dollar grant program Congress created. But U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, in a 35-page opinion, also agreed with the administration that it was unconstitutional for the government to use race or ethnicity as the basis to award money under a program created to expand internet skills and access. “It was definitely disappointing,” said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, a nonprofit that filed suit last year after not receiving a nearly $26 million award meant to bolster digital and internet skills nationwide. “With this administration it’s really worrisome.” Congress passed the $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act in 2021 as the skill development component of a multilayered “Internet for All” initiative under President Joe Biden’s signature infrastructure law, which also included a bigger pot of money for expanding internet infrastructure. A few months into his second term, Trump directly attacked the Digital Equity Act on social media, pledging “no more woke handouts” and calling the program “illegal.” The language echoed two Trump executive orders characterizing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as illegal.
|
