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1 week ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
It was a rare opportunity. The FCC asked the entities that it regulates to list all of the “unnecessary regulatory burdens” the Commission currently requires in a docket titled, “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete.” Hundreds of individuals and associations found plenty of suggestions to offer. Historically, rural telcos have asked the FCC to consider their comparatively their small staff sizes and budgets compared to larger telecommunications companies when writing new regulations.
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4 weeks ago | 
benton.org | Randy Sukow
It was to be one hour of oral arguments about the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Universal Service Fund (USF) program, considering whether Congress delegated too much of its authority when it created the program in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
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4 weeks ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
t was to be one hour of Wednesday morning oral arguments about the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF) program, considering whether Congress delegated too much of its authority when it created the program in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
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1 month ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
Sometimes a thorny problem arises, and no obvious solution presents itself. One such case might be when an electric cooperative detects excessive growth in peak demand. There could be several potential solutions, but there must be a process to determine which is the right solution. NRTC Smart Grid Technology recently worked with Cuivre River Electric Cooperative, Troy, MO, and developed a distributed energy resources (DER) solution. “When we looked at our numbers, summer growth was there.
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1 month ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
The NRTC Annual Meeting for Electric Members, March 9, 2025, in Atlanta, GA. Board Chairman Jimmy Todd and CEO Tim Bryan addressed the meeting. Blog report.
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1 month ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
Dairyland Power Cooperative, LaCrosse, WI, today announced the availability of its VoltWrite private generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform to fellow rural electric cooperatives. Nate Melby, Dairyland’s VP and chief information officer, announced the new service during a Tuesday morning session at NRECA’s TechAdvantage Conference in Atlanta. “We at Dairyland have had so many inquiries and questions from other cooperatives about what we’re doing with artificial intelligence,” Melby said.
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1 month ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
Demand for electric power is going up and some rural electric cooperatives worry that the trends could create burdens for residential customers in the form of rising costs or even periods of outage. The current estimate is that demand is growing 3 percent annually nationwide. Speakers at NRECA’s PowerXchange/TechAdvantage conference say they are trying multiple approaches to solve the problem. But the true pace of demand growth and the effectiveness of the solutions remain open questions.
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1 month ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
So far, the year 2025 has brought a new sense of regulatory uncertainty. The future of many broadband and smart grid programs is in question, potentially complicating many NRTC members’ technology planning. Without getting into the politics of the new regulatory directions, NRTC CEO Tim Bryan brought examples of why it might be better to watch markets rather than policy to get a feel for the future. “Technology drives the market and the market beats policy in the long run,” Bryan said.
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1 month ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
Almost simultaneously today, newly installed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson (R-NC, pictured above) announced initiatives to change the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Both complained that that more than three years have passed since Congress passed BEAD as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs (II&J) Act, yet the program has yet to connect a single rural home.
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1 month ago | 
nrtc.coop | Randy Sukow
The FCC yesterday began preparing for the return of spectrum auctions. Dating back to the early 1990s, most industry observers have praised auctions as an efficient method for assigning frequencies to wireless carriers while at the same time contributing billions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury. The Commission held its last auction in 2022 and in early 2023, Congress allowed the FCC’s auction authority to lapse.
