Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

Business Oregon’s Oregon Broadband Office announced the preliminary awardees selected to assume Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment projects that were voluntarily declined by their original awardees. Through a structured replacement process and strong collaboration with broadband providers across Oregon, OBO has successfully identified preliminary awardees to serve all eligible locations affected by the declined awards, ensuring broadband deployment remains on schedule.

From 2020 through 2024, Congress appropriated over $82 billion to programs across multiple agencies to expand broadband access.

Three AI trends are accelerating and colliding, forcing government, business and investors to rethink strategies in real time: • AI is getting bigger and better, both here and in China. • The U.S. government is scrambling to keep pace by creating a regulatory framework, perhaps with international reach. • Both America and China are considering blocking access to their best AI, in recognition of the rising stakes.

OpenAI is rolling out a new generation of voice models for ChatGPT, aiming to make conversations with its AI sound more natural while routing these queries to its best models. OpenAI says its smartest voice models yet, GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini, make conversations feel more human by allowing users to interrupt naturally and pause speech without the model cutting them off.

While there is robust literature on the negative impact of adolescent device use on physical and psychological health, there is less research on the use of technology in the presence of others and its implications for key relationships. Known as “technoference” and “phubbing,” these device-based behaviors have only recently been examined in parent-child contexts.

Rural cooperatives have been the backbone of modern efforts to bring affordable next-generation fiber to long-neglected rural U.S. communities. So it’s important to listen to them when they warn that Trump administration Natinoal Telecommunications and Information Administration changes to telecommunications subsidy programs are going to have a profoundly negative impact on efforts to expand fast, affordable Internet access.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk maintains an extremely close relationship with Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr. Under Chairman Carr’s leadership, Musk’s rocket company has effectively been given carte blanche in its efforts to roll out its orbital Starlink broadband service to more Americans, a glaring conflict of interest that could have profound implications for society.

Oracle is touting changes to its plans for a massive 1,400-acre, 2+GW data center campus in New Mexico as it awaits a key permit for the project, hoping its new plan will be enough to win over regulators despite extensive public backlash against the project. The campus in question is Stargate’s $165 billion Project Jupiter data center, one of a series of super-campuses OpenAI and its partners are seeking to build around the world. Oracle is the tenant for the Project Jupiter campus in New Mexico.

Virginia has approved what appears to be the nation’s first tax on data center electricity use. A legislative deal, which ends months of budget negotiations, imposes a new charge on the power used by data centers in the Commonwealth as of July 1. But the compromise stops short of rolling back the long-standing and controversial sales tax exemption on equipment that has helped fuel Virginia's massive data center industry.

Recently there have been several pieces published that argue, in light of price and quality trends, that broadband service is affordable, and that, whether or not affordability matters, those who do not have service at home simply do not want it. These affordability arguments look at the Federal Communications Commission’s Urban Rate Survey (URS) to claim that broadband prices in real terms have been falling.