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A state representative made the case for the pause and showed his math. Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson of District 86 argued for Ordinance 5982 in an op-ed published by MLK50 on Oct. 5 and reprinted by Scalawag on Oct. 8. He writes that the existing facility was brought in through secrecy, that the gas turbines in Memphis and across the state line in Southaven pollute air in nearby Black neighborhoods, and that the city’s Unified Development Code was not written for facilities at this scale. “Our lives matter more than hyper-scale data centers,” he writes.

Pearson states his method rather than citing an agency. From 30 turbines with available emissions data, assuming 80% capacity, he estimates roughly 2,500 tons a year of nitrogen oxides, about 4,000 tons of carbon monoxide and 22 tons of formaldehyde. He puts city and county tax revenue from the facility at $30 million and cites a poll finding 65% of Americans opposed to new large data centers in their communities.

The council chair then barred him from the next two council meetings. Memphis City Attorney Allan Wade confirmed to WMC Action News 5 on Oct. 9 that Justin Pearson is barred from the next two City Council meetings. The letter carries the signature of Council Chair Jana Swearengen-Washington, and Wade said the chair holds sole authority to bar people from meetings and that the decision is “totally consistent with our rules of procedures.” Wade tied it to the Oct. 6 meeting that ended early. KeShaun Pearson, executive director of Memphis Community Against Pollution, is also on the list. Wade said others are barred and did not name them. LJ Abraham, who was also barred, said, “I also feel it was politically motivated and that I am being targeted.”

Pearson says he never received a physical copy of the letter, and that a version of it showing his home address is circulating online. He says the chair told him he was being disruptive. “I was not being disruptive,” he said. He attended the Thursday Oct. 8 meeting and was not turned away at the door, and he asked council members from the floor, “Do you know anything about that?” Of the week, he said, “This is a horrible moment in Memphis history.” At that Thursday meeting the council passed two ordinances amending the city’s zoning code for data centers on first reading. Both need two more readings before they take effect, and WREG reported that the agenda packet included few details. The moratorium stays set for Oct. 20.

The mayor ordered a 90-day study that waits on nothing. Mayor Paul Young signed an executive order on Oct. 9 creating a working group on large and hyperscale data centers, chaired by the city’s chief operating officer. The city’s own announcement sets out the scope. The group covers six areas: land use and neighborhood protections, including distances from homes and schools in the Unified Development Code; engineering standards for stormwater, sewer, traffic and landscaping; air quality permitting and enforcement, with recommendations going to the Shelby County Health Department; water and aquifer protection, including treated wastewater for cooling, for Memphis Light, Gas & Water; energy and utility costs, including rate structures that protect other customers; and noise limits.

A written report is due to the mayor within 90 days. The order requires at least three community education sessions, a written public comment period and an open presentation of findings, and it directs the Engineering Department to apply an added review period of at least five business days to permits while the study runs. The city states plainly that the order “does not suspend, delay, restrict, or interfere with Council action.” Young said, “My responsibility is to protect Memphians and make sure our city benefits from the investments coming here.” Asked about criticism of his leadership that week, he told Action News 5, “I’m human just like everybody else.”

Musk-linked money went to the Southaven police while the city was approving the data center. Organizations tied to Elon Musk gave the Southaven, Mississippi police department a combined $3.23 million between December and February, while SpaceXAI was seeking approvals for its data center in the city, Mississippi Today reported Oct. 7. MZX Tech LLC, a SpaceXAI subsidiary, sent $1.38 million earmarked for the department, and a city clerk signed the receipt Dec. 17, the day after the Board of Aldermen approved a memorandum of understanding with the company. The Musk Foundation gave $1.85 million under a grant agreement signed Dec. 29 by the city finance director, for equipment including Flock cameras and an autonomous drone system.

The department’s 2024 budget was $21 million. Purchases include 13 Dodge Durango SUVs for about $540,000, a Flock drone system for $250,000 and five Dodge Ram trucks for about $195,000. Separately, the memorandum has MZX Tech contributing $3.46 million to widen and resurface roads near the power plant and data center. In August the mayor told the Board of Aldermen the company had offered $40 million for a new police and fire training facility in exchange for a city-owned 51-acre lot next to its power plant. The donation agreement contains a clause stating there is no quid pro quo. Mayor Darren Musselwhite called the MZX donation an “unrelated transaction” and said the perception of a conflict of interest is “simply just not true.” Police Chief Seth Kern said other departments around the country also received Musk Foundation grants.

The Southaven renter in last week’s lead says her landlord took the buyout. Danielle Dillard, the single mother whose Nov. 30 move-out notice led issue 05, told WMC Action News 5 on Oct. 8 that her landlord accepted a buyout from SpaceXAI. Issue 05 reported, from DeSoto County News, that she had been told the property was being sold. This adds who the buyer was. She has been approved for a new home but says she cannot find rent she can afford in the same school district. “Being a single mom, I live by a very strict budget in this economy that we live in,” she said. The company has offered buyouts to property owners near the plant in exchange for agreeing not to join the residents’ class action over noise.

The mayor’s written advice to a homeowner who cannot sleep was to consider selling. CBS News published an account on Oct. 5 of Southaven residents within a mile of the plant serving the xAI data centers who report headaches, ringing in the ears and lost sleep. Jason Haley, 46, one of three residents who sued in June over noise and vibration, says it began in August 2025 and that he has measured above 60 decibels from his own backyard as late as 10:15 p.m. The World Health Organization’s recommended annual average nighttime level outdoors near bedrooms is under 40 decibels. Mayor Darren Musselwhite acknowledged the noise and wrote in March that Haley “may want to consider selling” his home: “I know they want houses for employees, so you may want to consider selling your home.”

The turbine count at the plant has gone from 27 to 59 over time, and the Mississippi air permit under appeal allows 41 permanent methane gas turbines. The NAACP sued in April and is appealing that permit. Taylor Logsdon, a plaintiff, said, “I would move tomorrow if I could.” Haley said, “I can’t live in this. How was this ever approved?” Southaven’s median household income was over $70,000 in 2024, about $20,000 above the state average.

Georgia fined a data center and the power plant beside it for installing engines before the permits came. Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division fined two companies a combined $42,500 under consent orders for installing engines in Newton County before they had construction permits, Atlanta News First reported Oct. 6. VoltaGrid LLC, which owns and operates the power plant, agreed to pay $11,500 within 30 days. Serverfarm, which owns and operates the data center, agreed to pay $31,000 within 30 days.

The timeline in the orders is specific. The division received a complaint June 25 and inspected both sites June 29, finding eight engines in various stages of installation at the power plant, none connected to gas or power, and 37 diesel-fired emergency generators at the data center, none connected to fuel or power. It issued Serverfarm its construction and operation permit the same day. Notices of violation followed July 2, including a stop-work order for VoltaGrid, and a July 22 inspection found construction stopped with 11 engines on site. VoltaGrid said installation began on or about May 29. Serverfarm said construction began March 9. Both consent orders state they are not a finding or adjudication of a violation, and neither company admitted liability. Serverfarm said, “None of the generators have been operated nor will they be operated without a permit.” Maurice Carter of the advocacy group Sustainable Newton said the fines are small but a step, and that “the state is going to have to step up,” adding that cities and counties need more help understanding the facilities arriving in them.

Duke Energy settled on who pays in North Carolina, and nobody has been asked what they think. Duke Energy filed a settlement with the North Carolina Utilities Commission on Oct. 6 on a large load tariff for data centers, WUNC reported Oct. 7. The Public Staff, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other large customers signed on. Digital Realty did not. New data centers would pay upfront for dedicated facilities such as substations, while other transmission upgrade costs would initially be spread across all customers and repaid over the life of the data center’s contract. An early exit would require paying only a fraction of the remaining balance. The detailed cost allocation is deferred to the next rate case, roughly two years away.

The thresholds are at least 50 megawatts with an 80% load factor, or 150 megawatts at any load factor, measured as contracted demand. Contracts run at least 10 years below 100 megawatts and at least 15 years at or above it, with customers paying for at least 75% of contracted demand. Duke may interrupt 95% of the load for up to 50 hours a year, or 50% for up to 100 hours. The tariff would not apply to companies that signed contracts on or before June 1, 2026, which the reporting says may include Digital Realty’s Moores Chapel project and University City PowerHouse in Charlotte and Amazon’s project in Rockingham. Nick Jimenez, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said “the rest of us are stuck holding the bag” and that “Duke and the hyperscalers have gone from opposing any large load tariff to asking the commission to accept one.” Will Scott, North Carolina policy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, said it “gives us a clear floor” while failing “to do the same for new power plants.” Claire Williamson of the N.C. Justice Center said “the data centers can’t be allowed to walk away and leave North Carolina families and small businesses holding the bag.”

Three North Carolina boards voted on pauses in two days and went three different ways. Raleigh approved a six-month pause on new larger data centers 7-1 on Oct. 6, WRAL reported. The draft gives staff 60 days to study impacts and draft rules and then 120 days for the legislative process, exempting facilities at 10,000 square feet or less of proposed floor area and 5 megawatts or less of peak demand. Advocates had asked for 32 months. Mary Black, a former city council member now organizing with the Raleigh Anti-Data Center Coalition, said, “What we want is transparency and input in the process, and that’s going to take more than six months.” Wake County neighbors Cary and Apex have pauses of 18 and 12 months.

Beaufort County commissioners held a public hearing on Oct. 5 and voted 6-1 for a 12-month pause, with Hood Richardson dissenting on the argument that a data center could reduce residential property taxes. And Lee County commissioners voted 5-2 against a 180-day pause on Oct. 5. Commissioner Robert Reives Sr. proposed it and Mark Lovick supported it. The county attorney advised against it, saying state law requires specific findings and that the county had adopted data center standards about six months earlier. The pause would not have reached the project issue 05 covered: the CyrusOne facility on Lower Moncure Road, permitted Sept. 25 at more than 300,000 square feet and 90 megawatts, with the building valued at about $185 million on the permit and the project put at roughly $3.6 billion with computing equipment. County Manager Lisa Minter said there is only one site in the county zoned light industrial, undeveloped and large enough for a project that size.

Entergy said for the first time that Meta’s Louisiana data center will draw 4,500 megawatts. A multiday hearing opened Oct. 7 before Louisiana Public Service Commission chief administrative law judge Melanie Verzwyvelt on whether to approve a settlement between Entergy and commission staff covering seven new gas-fired power plants in Richland and Pointe Coupee parishes, plus transmission lines, solar farms and batteries, and allowing Entergy to skip its normal competitive bid process. During it, Entergy disclosed that Meta’s Richland Parish data center will use 4,500 megawatts, which the Advocate put at roughly four times New Orleans’s usage.

Opponents, including the Alliance for Affordable Energy, the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists, argue ratepayers could be left holding the cost if Meta leaves before its 20-year contract ends. Three of the plants are depreciated over 32 years against that 20-year contract. Louisiana Department of Revenue data puts sales tax rebates claimed by data center developers so far at $39 million, expected to grow into the billions. Four of the five commissioners have previously voted for Entergy’s Meta plans. Entergy Louisiana chief executive Phillip May called the proposal a “transformational investment” and said, “We are in a power-first world where speed to power is what will drive who wins economic opportunity for their communities.” Entergy’s plans involve expropriation for transmission land, which has drawn landowner complaints that issue 05 reported.

A Mississippi site raised its contracted power to 11 megawatts under TVA’s new data center rate. PowerCompute, Inc. announced Oct. 6 that its subsidiary signed a power contract with Columbus Light and Water on Sept. 30, effective Oct. 1, raising contracted demand at its Columbus, Mississippi site from 8.5 to 11 megawatts and moving it off a manufacturing rate onto the local tariff implementing the Tennessee Valley Authority’s new Large Data Service Rate. Columbus Light and Water is returning the company’s $300,000 power deposit, to be replaced by a utility bond. No capacity commitment charge was assessed on the increase.

The tariff terms in the release are what matter beyond this one site. TVA adopted the rate in August 2026 and pulled data center load out of its general industrial rate class, with the definition including Bitcoin mining. Starting in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, new or expanded data center load above the first 5 megawatts of contracted demand faces a capacity commitment charge of roughly $1.5 million per megawatt, with 2,000 megawatts of cohort capacity available first-come, first-served and load already under contract before Oct. 1 exempt.

A lawsuit says 500 miles of new pipeline from Mississippi to Georgia rests on inflated data center forecasts. Federal regulators approved 500 miles of new pipeline this summer running from Mississippi into Georgia, Kinder Morgan’s Mississippi Crossing Project and South System Expansion 4, to serve utilities including Dominion Energy and Southern Company, Georgia Public Broadcasting reported Oct. 6. The Southern Environmental Law Center sued on behalf of several nonprofits and landowners, arguing the demand behind the approval is grossly overestimated. It relies on an analysis by London Economics International estimating the pipelines would carry more than four times the gas shown in the utilities’ publicly available forecasts, largely because of speculative future data center demand. Under the Natural Gas Act, approval turns on present and future public need.

The two projects carry a combined announced cost of $5.2 billion and would add 3.4 billion cubic feet per day of gas. Megan Gibson, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said, “We think FERC authorized these projects unlawfully.” Melissa Ruiz, director of corporate communications at Kinder Morgan, said, “We don’t comment on meritless litigation.”

South Carolina’s Lowcountry projects are stalled, and an overlay ordinance could restart them quietly. A wire roundup published Oct. 5 lays out where things stand. A proposed campus of more than 800 acres in rural Colleton County is on hold: the county council gave final approval to a six-month moratorium, extendable, and on Aug. 10 the Planning Commission and council approved a “digital infrastructure overlay” ordinance on first reading, by title only. A landowner lawsuit also challenges the project. Jasper County has passed its own moratorium. The Coastal Conservation League warned in a Sept. 2 statement that the overlay could allow approvals without public notice and could permit a one-gigawatt facility with on-site gas generation: “If this zoning overlay passes, data centers could be approved without any notice to the public.”

The roundup also covers Project Camellia, OpenAI’s campus in the Rincon area of Effingham County, Georgia, at 3.2 gigawatts across four 720,000-square-foot buildings on 1,440 acres over five years, with about 1,000 construction and 1,000 permanent jobs promised and roughly 30,000 gallons a day of water in a closed loop. And it covers a Department of Energy plan at the Savannah River Site, which spans more than 300 square miles across three South Carolina counties, where the department chose to negotiate a phased lease for a one-gigawatt data center with about 2 gigawatts of on-site generation described as gas bridging to nuclear. For contrast, the one built facility it names is a 30,800-square-foot data center on 1.4 acres in Fairfax, Allendale County, with access to 2.08 megawatts.

Every one of the eight localities on a 115-mile transmission route now formally opposes it. The Campbell County Board of Supervisors voted 4-3 on Oct. 6 to oppose the proposed Joshua Falls to Yeat extra-high-voltage line, making Campbell the last of eight affected localities to pass a resolution against it, Cardinal News reported Oct. 8. The resolutions are largely symbolic, because the State Corporation Commission rather than county boards approves transmission lines. Valley Link, a partnership of Dominion Energy, FirstEnergy Transmission and Transource Energy, plans to file with the commission this fall and hopes to finish in 2029.

The line would run about 115 miles between Campbell and Culpeper counties at an estimated $1 billion, with towers up to 160 feet and a cleared right of way 200 feet wide, crossing Appomattox, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa and Orange counties in between. Two-tenths of a mile of it sits inside Campbell County, by Appalachian Power’s account. Becky Nix, a Concord resident, asked the board “to protect the beauty of our county from the indelible scar.” Rick Summy, also of Concord, said, “We personally see no benefit of this proposed power line project to our property and none to Campbell County.” County Administrator Frank Rogers told the board the resolution “isn’t anything more than a communication of your preferences.” The county does keep real leverage on a separate front: Appalachian Power wants to relocate the Joshua Falls substation to a nearby agricultural property, which would need a special-use permit or rezoning from the board. Supervisor Matt Cline, who requested the resolution, said of that, “That’s where the teeth would come in.”

Loudoun County declined to audit its own 30 data center projects. The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted 7-2 on Oct. 6 to table indefinitely an independent audit of 30 data center projects, 15 approved since March 2025 and 15 under review, Loudoun Now reported Oct. 7. Supervisors Laura TeKrony and Juli Briskman had first proposed revoking grandfathering protections for some pending applications, then offered the audit instead. County staff warned that revoking the protections could draw litigation costing up to $60 million and could affect the county’s bond rating.

The figures the county’s own development director presented are the ones to keep. Fifteen applications totaling 10.5 million square feet currently meet the grandfathering requirements. Four applications totaling 1.8 million square feet have lost that status since February 2025, and one application just under 100,000 square feet was disqualified for sitting within 500 feet of residential property. The audit would have cost $200,000 and reported by April 2027. The grandfathering resolution stays in force until it sunsets Feb. 12, 2028. Supervisor Matthew F. Letourneau called the efforts “performative discussions” and said “the answer is not to go out and spend $200,000 to second guess the work that staff has already done.” TeKrony said the point was to build community trust through “an independent evaluation.”

Google put $15 million into Virginia energy bills in the same week residents testified that data centers are raising them. Google committed money from a $15 million Virginia Energy Impact Fund covering Botetourt, Loudoun, Prince William and Chesterfield counties, Hampton Roads and statewide efforts, Cardinal News reported Oct. 9. Botetourt County is in line for about $1.8 million plus $260,000 for construction-related workforce development. The Virginia Community Action Partnership gets about $9.5 million for energy affordability and community resilience statewide. FLIPP Inc., a nonprofit in Dillwyn, gets $500,000 for workforce development. The story breaks out no separate amount for Chesterfield or Hampton Roads. About 80 homeowners are projected to receive repairs over the next year.

A developer argued it should not need a public permit on 400 acres near Chester, and we do not know how it went. WestDulles Properties, a Reston developer, appealed a Chesterfield County staff determination that a conditional use permit is required before data centers can be built on more than 400 acres at 1120 Battery Brook Parkway, near Chester. The company argues it has a vested right to build by right under the county’s previous zoning ordinance. County staff recommended denial. The appeal went to the Board of Zoning Appeals on Oct. 7, and issue 05 carried the hearing date.

We could not find or load any reporting on the outcome. We are saying so rather than leaving the item out, because a vested-rights win on 400 acres in Chesterfield would matter to Richmond-area readers and the board has rejected a similar appeal from a different developer earlier this year.

The FCC proposed more than $10 million in fines against two phone companies that billed the low-income subsidy twice for the same people. The commission adopted Notices of Apparent Liability on Oct. 7 against two Lifeline providers under common ownership, alleging they submitted reimbursement claims for the same subscribers and other improper claims. The proposed forfeitures are $2,673,966 against AirVoice Wireless and $7,453,966 against TAG Mobility, about $10.13 million together. The counts are 74 duplicate federal Lifeline claims plus three improper reimbursement requests for the first company, and 318 duplicate claims plus three improper requests for the second. Light Reading reports both operate under Houston-based HTH Communications.

Lifeline pays $9.25 a month per eligible household and costs roughly $1 billion a year. Chairman Brendan Carr said, “The FCC has an obligation to be a good steward of federal dollars.” Commissioner Anna M. Gomez, the commission’s lone Democrat, backed the action and drew a line under it: “This enforcement action is a targeted and responsible step that holds the providers who committed fraud accountable,” adding that “we must pursue fraud and wrongdoing wherever the evidence leads, free from politics.” Her office said the fraud “was committed by providers and not by the eligible households that participate in the program,” and she argued the case should also expose weaknesses in the commission’s own systems that let it through. In a related filing the Public Utility Commission of Texas reported a multiyear Lifeline audit error rate below 0.17% and asked for a six-to-twelve-month transition if its opt-out from the federal eligibility verifier is eliminated.

One proposal on the table would make data centers pay into the fund that keeps rural lines alive. At the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition’s annual conference, panelists discussed expanding the Universal Service Fund’s contribution base to hyperscalers, cloud providers and other large infrastructure users, with contributions keyed to network capacity used rather than to interstate telecommunications revenue, Broadband Breakfast reported Oct. 8. The fund currently draws from a shrinking base of traditional phone revenue. A proposed contribution factor of 42% of interstate telecommunications revenues for the fourth quarter of 2026 has been described as the highest in the fund’s history.

Adeyenka Ogunleye, chief of staff and vice president of federal affairs at the National Urban League, said, “I think we really need to look hard at who contributes, what revenue streams benefit from the internet ecosystem.” Trent Harkrader, former chief of the commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau, argued for moving beyond declining phone revenue and treating hyperscalers as large end users. Virdina Gibbs of NTCA said the fund remains necessary after BEAD because BEAD builds networks while the fund supports affordability and ongoing operation. Separately, a bipartisan congressional working group is nearing a discussion draft on updating the fund, which now disburses about $8 billion a year.

Accessibility rules and a vetting process for rural subsidy recipients are on the commission’s Oct. 29 agenda. The commission announced its tentative agenda for the Oct. 29 open meeting on Oct. 9. Two of the seven items touch this beat. One is a notice of proposed rulemaking implementing the Rural Broadband Protection Act, which would create a vetting process for companies receiving high-cost universal service support. The other proposes updates to accessibility rules covering closed captioning, audio description and device compatibility. The rest is spectrum, satellite, drones and equipment authorization. Chairman Carr’s blog previewing the meeting also flags a proposed auction of 25 megahertz of mid-band spectrum.

The one thing the broadband agency did all week was delete a grant program that expired four years ago. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration published no press release, no BEAD program notice and no Digital Equity Act notice between Oct. 5 and Oct. 11. Its only action of any kind in the window was a joint final rule with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, published Oct. 6 and effective immediately, removing and reserving the regulations for the 911 Grant Program. The agencies cite the program’s inactivity, the expiration of its authorization on Oct. 1, 2022, and the absence of new appropriations. No 911 grants are open for application.

The agency’s BEAD progress dashboard was last refreshed Sept. 8, and still shows 56 of 56 final proposals submitted and approved, 55 approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and 54 award agreements signed and returned. Those are counts of states and territories. Nothing changed during the window.

States still do not have the lists, and Arkansas says they may not come until November. States had not received the lists of locations eligible for the additional BEAD round as of Oct. 7, Broadband Breakfast reported, attributing the delay to the federal agency waiting on the Federal Communications Commission’s June 2026 broadband coverage data to re-check them. Glen Howie, director of the Arkansas State Broadband Office, said, “We may not see it until sometime in November, perhaps,” and, “I think they’re waiting on the June data to take another look at their lists and see what that looks like.”

Two independent analyses the same week put the same roughly $21 billion of non-deployment money at the center. Doug Dawson of CCG Consulting argued on Oct. 8 that the agency is sequencing the eligible-locations list first and has given guidance on only “some tiny portion” of the money, which he reads as a delay: “it takes NTIA off the hook for providing guidance for the bulk of the non-deployment funds.” And a study from the Advanced Connectivity Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School, reported Oct. 8, found that BEAD builds will generate about 271,782 miles of buried fiber, roughly 57.5% of all BEAD fiber miles, producing about 1.4 million 811 locate tickets and about 8.1 million individual facility locates. Michael Santorelli, who directs the institute, said, “This could delay builds and raise costs. It could also lead to an increase in damage events,” which “can be deadly or have significant financial and practical impacts.” Common Ground Alliance damage reports attribute about 30% of all damage reports to telecom providers and internet service providers, the highest of any industry.

Louisiana broke ground on what the state calls the country’s largest BEAD-funded build. Gov. Jeff Landry, ConnectLA and REV Fiber broke ground in Central, Louisiana, in East Baton Rouge Parish, on a BEAD-funded fiber build supported by the state’s GUMBO 2.0 program. The build covers 2,840 locations, of which about 2,500 are federally funded. Construction is expected to start in November and run seven to eight months. Louisiana’s total BEAD allocation is $1.36 billion and the state targets statewide connectivity by 2028. Two days later the state announced that 1,222 fire stations, police departments and sheriff’s offices across Louisiana will receive connectivity through the same program. Light Reading reported Oct. 9 that the Central build is part of a state target of 15,000 BEAD locations by the end of the first quarter of 2027, and that the Louisiana Local Fiber Consortium of REV Fiber, T-Mobile and Swyft Fiber won roughly $378 million in BEAD funding.

The federal survey that measures who uses a computer has not been run in three years. The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey computer and internet use supplement, which is the government’s main household measure of device ownership and internet use, still shows November 2023 as its most recent collection, and the page was last revised in August 2024. Separately, the bureau has still not set a release date for the 2025 American Community Survey one-year estimates; its updates page carries an Aug. 6 entry saying the date is being determined, and nothing changed during this window. The newest Census broadband subscription figures anyone can cite remain the 2020 to 2024 five-year tables, which are centered on 2022.

A nonprofit launched a device index and says 25.8 million people now have a phone and nothing else. Digitunity, a national nonprofit, launched a National Computer Ownership Index on Oct. 7, built from American Community Survey microdata and claiming national, state, county and population-group detail. It reports that 32.9 million people lack reliable access to a large-screen computer, about one in 10 people and about one in eight households. Of those, 7.1 million have no computing device at all, down from 21.9 million in 2016, and 25.8 million rely on a smartphone alone, up from 20.9 million in 2016. Among adults without a high school diploma, 28.8% lack a large-screen computer, as do 16.9% of adults 65 and over and 12% of unemployed people. Karisa Tashijian, the group’s chief program officer, said, “The data shows real progress, but it also shows why computer ownership continues to matter.”

Broadband prices started climbing again after a competitive summer. Home broadband prices have begun rising again following several months of aggressive competition, according to a MoffettNathanson analysis reported Oct. 6, which cautions that the increases follow a longer downward trend and that no lasting reversal is established. Light Reading filled in the detail on Oct. 9. AT&T offered gigabit fiber at $35 a month in some aggressive markets earlier in 2026 with no step-up after 12 months; its price rose to $40 for 12 months and then $80, and it raised prices again after Sept. 1. Comcast temporarily cut its gigabit starting price from $65 to $40. As of late August the average cost over the first three years ran $60 to $65 in both aggressive and standard markets. The underlying dataset is more than 100,000 advertised price points from more than 30 operators, collected by Navi.

Comcast chief financial officer Jason Armstrong described the competitive pricing this way: “When we see fiber pricing, standalone fiber pricing, in the $30 to $40 range for a Gig, that’s what we mean by irrational.” Craig Moffett said the recent increases “come in the context of a longer trend of falling broadband prices” and that “it’s too soon to call a definitive turn.” Doug Dawson, writing the same week, made a prediction about where the increases land: he expects “the low-income neighborhoods will be paying the most for broadband,” because providers “price by customer and neighborhood.”

The cheapest smartphones are disappearing because data centers bought the memory. Artificial intelligence data centers have absorbed the memory chip supply, raising entry-level phone prices and pushing manufacturers to retire their cheapest models, Rest of World reported Oct. 5. Existing models are up about 15% globally in 2026, per Counterpoint, with new models about 25% higher than last year. By region in 2026: India up 21%, Asia-Pacific up 19%, the Middle East and Africa up 18%, the United States up 5%. Shipments of phones under $100 fell nearly 60% year over year in the second quarter of 2026, and in Africa specifically by 34%, per IDC. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron hold over 90% of the memory chip market and shifted most supply to AI data centers in late 2025.

A GSMA report published in September puts the cost of an entry-level phone at 44% of monthly income for the poorest 20% of people globally, and 76% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint, said, “What used to be below $150 may become below $250, or even $300.” Ramon Llamas, research director in mobile devices at IDC, said, “Scarcity of memory has driven up prices for memory, and those price increases have been passed on to the consumer.” Claire Sibthorpe, head of digital inclusion at the GSMA nonprofit foundation, said, “When smartphones remain available but become unaffordable, consumers make difficult sacrifices to keep themselves online.” U.S. hyperscaler capital spending was $470 billion in 2025 and is projected at $870 billion in 2026 and over $1.3 trillion in 2027, per S&P Global Ratings.

A judge blocked a $480 million deal for a rural internet provider on its closing day. A federal judge temporarily blocked Cable One’s $480 million acquisition of Mega Broadband Investments, the owner of the regional provider Vyve Broadband, after the lender CoBank ACB sued on the scheduled closing day to stop it, Broadband Breakfast reported Oct. 9. Judge J. Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found enough cause to pause the transaction. CoBank alleges the company is worth far less than $480 million. The court has not ruled on that valuation claim and the order is preliminary.

A bill to strip federal money from governments using license plate readers names Georgia and North Carolina in the misuse record. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Jeff Merkley introduced the Ban Flock Act on Oct. 5, StateScoop reported. It would cut federal funding to state and local governments that use automatic license plate readers, bar federal agencies from using the readers or their data, and create a private right of action against the federal government. Sponsors cite data sharing with federal immigration officials and searches tied to protests. The article notes that officers in Georgia, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Wisconsin were found using the technology to stalk, spy on or harass partners or former partners. Flock claims more than 120,000 cameras installed nationwide, which is the company’s own figure.

Two other bills are in play. Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a competing Stop Flock Abuse Act in late September that would require automatic deletion of data after 10 days with an exception for criminal investigations. And Sen. Chuck Schumer wrote to Flock’s chief executive, Garrett Langley, about the company’s national lookup tool, requesting a reply by Oct. 16. Ocasio-Cortez said in a news release that “Big Tech companies like Flock Safety have built a mass surveillance system.” More than 50 agencies or communities canceled or suspended contracts, rejected proposals or deactivated cameras during 2026.

One Virginia department published a year of plate reader numbers, and 21,000 searches produced 137 charges. The Alexandria Police Department released a map of its fixed license plate readers and a year of query and outcome counts under City Council pressure, ALXnow reported Oct. 6. Between August 2025 and August 2026 the department ran nearly 21,000 queries. It attributes 137 charges directly to them, 72 felony and 65 misdemeanor, which the article calculates as about 5% of the 2,694 criminal arrests in the same period. It also credits three missing persons located, 35 stolen vehicles recovered and four firearms recovered. The department operates 61 fixed readers and 10 vehicle-mounted systems, with the fixed cameras clustered in high-crime areas and at the Fairfax and Arlington borders. Neighboring jurisdictions are pulling back: Arlington voted to discontinue the cameras, Fairfax suspended new installations and the Fairfax County School Board banned them on school grounds.

A separate commentary published the same week by Brian O’Hara, the former chief of the Minneapolis Police Department and a former deputy mayor and public safety director in Newark, argues the lesson of these systems is verification before enforcement. From a two-month Los Angeles review he cites 337 stolen-vehicle recoveries from in-car reader alerts, 68 stops from those alerts and 74 arrests from those stops, and 161 alerts that officers confirmed as correct plate matches where later investigation found the vehicles were not stolen. “Compliance is the floor, not the finish line,” he writes. “An alert should prompt verification, not automatic enforcement.”

Georgia put a chatbot in front of the Secretary of State’s services and did not say whether it uses generative artificial intelligence. Georgia’s Secretary of State launched GABBY, a chatbot that answers resident questions by drawing on content already published on the office’s website, StateScoop reported Oct. 9. The stated goal is to cut the time residents spend hunting through webpages and waiting on the call center. StateScoop reports the announcement did not say whether the tool uses generative artificial intelligence. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said, “GABBY puts information at Georgians’ fingertips.” The state’s Department of Labor already runs a similar tool, which officials say has handled more than 2.5 million interactions since its 2022 launch.

For the second week running, not one of the nine state broadband offices published anything. We checked all nine between Oct. 5 and Oct. 11. None published a news item, a press release, a supplemental eligible location list or a challenge notice. Last week it was nine of nine, and this week it is nine of nine again.

The most recent item at each office, where it falls outside the window: Alabama’s Be Linked site has no dated item newer than November 2025. Georgia’s Technology Authority newsroom stops at June 25, 2026, and the broadband program’s own press page carries nothing newer than July 20, 2021. Louisiana’s ConnectLA news roundup stops at Sept. 10. South Carolina’s Office of Regulatory Staff news page stops at June 30, with a Sept. 28 discussion paper on whether digital subscriber line service still counts as broadband posted on the broadband office page. North Carolina’s most recent item is Sept. 23. Arkansas last posted June 11 and its monthly newsletter appears to have lapsed after April. Tennessee’s broadband office page has no dated announcement newer than Nov. 13, 2024. Virginia’s broadband program page carries no dated items at all.

Two offices did publish during the window, on other subjects. Alabama’s Department of Economic and Community Affairs posted on traffic safety grants Oct. 9 and a police vehicle Oct. 8. Virginia’s Department of Housing and Community Development announced $67 million for home energy efficiency and $615,000 in Main Street grants on Oct. 8, and $22,738,858.67 in community development block grants across 17 projects on Oct. 7. In the Oct. 7 release the word broadband appears only in the site navigation, not in the text. Dr. Tamarah Holmes, who formerly led Virginia’s broadband office and now directs the department, is quoted in it on water, sewage and housing.

Mississippi’s BEAM news pages are robots-blocked, so that state was checked through Gov. Tate Reeves’s newsroom instead. Nothing there in the window concerns broadband, and the newest item is Oct. 1.

A majority-Black Georgia county was the one Southern local government that marked Digital Inclusion Week. Digital Inclusion Week ran Oct. 4 to 10, organized by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. Government Technology’s weekly digital equity column on Oct. 8 surveyed what state and local governments did with it. Clayton County, Georgia, whose Office of Digital Equity hosted free workshops and a block party, is the one local government in these nine states that appears. Queens University of Charlotte’s Center for Digital Equity, in North Carolina, launched a safety initiative with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Everything else in the column is elsewhere: nearly 6,000 laptops available for lending at 135 Connecticut libraries, $7 million behind that program, a $500,000 New York grant for digital navigators, more than $80 million allocated in Massachusetts over three years to upgrade internet in affordable housing units and $100 million more for devices and skills training, Los Angeles County’s first digital equity roadmap built on more than 8,100 survey responses, and San Diego’s broadband master plan.

Route Fifty’s own survey of the week, published Oct. 9, names no Southern state at all. The alliance itself published nothing during the week it organized, which we confirmed three ways: its blog, its homepage and its news page all show nothing newer than Sept. 14.

African governments switch off the network when crowds gather, and the courts have not caught up. Governments across Africa treat internet access as protest infrastructure, and litigation has not followed, Ephraim Percy Kenyanito argued in Global Voices on Oct. 7. Kenyanito is an international lawyer in trade, technology, media and telecommunications law who has published a monthly African law roundup since January 2014. His own count, which he says matches the figure the Access Now #KeepItOn coalition reaches, is more than 70 government network restriction episodes across 32 countries every year since 2014, excluding broadcaster closures.

His legal point is specific. Shutdown cases are argued under the African Charter’s expression provision, Article 9, when the harm is often to assembly, Article 11, and no court has yet ruled on the assembly claim. In the Senegal case decided by the Economic Community of West African States court in May 2025, the shutdown was found unlawful on expression and right-to-work grounds; the assembly claim was dismissed for the association bringing it and never reached for the individual. He notes that shutdowns are also used during national exams, in Kenya and annually in Algeria, which is his evidence that the tool is about preventing coordination generally rather than silencing speech specifically. On Angola’s first recorded national shutdown in July 2025, he gives two conflicting casualty counts: at least 22 killed per Al Jazeera, and 30 dead with more than 1,500 arrested per the CIVICUS Monitor. “Cut the network during a protest, and you have not silenced a conversation,” he writes.

Researchers say African tax systems could use mobile money data, and name the case where automation went wrong. Mobile money and digital public infrastructure could widen African tax bases, but only with legal limits on how tax data is used, co-design with taxpayers, accessible error correction and a human reviewing before any automated enforcement, Daisy Ogembo argued in Tech Policy Press on Oct. 8. Ogembo is a senior research fellow at the International Centre for Tax and Development at the University of Sussex, writing with Hannelore Niesten on their own research. They found that Kenya and South Africa have sector-specific data codes for banking and health but none for tax.

The World Bank puts mobile money account ownership in Sub-Saharan Africa at 40% of adults in 2024, up from 27% in 2021, which measures accounts held rather than use. African countries collect an average of about 16% of gross domestic product in tax revenue, against about 34% in the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2023. Their cautionary case is Australia’s Robodebt, where the government later acknowledged around 470,000 debts had been wrongly raised between 2016 and 2019 by crude data matching. “Most importantly, there must be a human in the loop before automated decisions lead to enforcement action,” Ogembo writes. “The problem was not that tax data was shared. It was that the matching was crude.”

Two Georgia seats that decide who pays for data centers are on the Nov. 3 ballot. Two of the five seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission are up on Nov. 3, and the races will shape who bears the cost of the energy infrastructure being built for data centers, Capital B Atlanta reported Oct. 8. Republicans have controlled the commission since the late 1990s. Last year Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson defeated Republican incumbents; Hubbard, who won a special election for the remainder of a term, now faces Fitz Johnson again, with the winner serving a term ending in 2032. The second race is Democrat Shelia Edwards of Mableton against Republican Josh Tolbert of Smyrna.

Georgia Power has about 2.8 million customers. The commission’s negotiated decision is estimated to cut about $4 a month from bills. Hubbard’s office says he and Alicia Johnson pressured Georgia Power to cut $500 million from an OpenAI data center project in Effingham County, which is a claim from the candidate’s office rather than a verified figure. Edwards said, “There’s a way for Georgia Power to make money but not have their boots on the backs of Georgians.” Fitz Johnson, asked about claims that data centers will raise bills, said “they’re absolutely wrong.” Tolbert said, “This job is technical and it’s time we send an engineer who knows how to do it.” Brionte McCorkle, executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters, said, “Black voters in particular are concerned about where these data centers are going.”

A Mississippi Senate candidate put a dollar figure on the data center bill, and Entergy disputed it. Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom circulated a video claiming a data center bailout adds about $10.60 a month, or about $127 a year, to the average Entergy Mississippi household bill, and called for a pause on data center construction, the Magnolia Tribune reported Oct. 6. “Mississippi families shouldn’t be asked to foot the bill for somebody else’s AI data center,” Colom said. An Entergy Mississippi spokesperson disputed the figure, pointing to the company’s Fair Share Plus pledge requiring data center customers to pay for their own infrastructure, and to a summer rate plan approved by the Mississippi Public Service Commission that the company says avoided a $4.87-a-month July increase relative to June. The company projects rates will be lower by 2030 than they otherwise would have been. The outlet is openly conservative and spends much of the piece on Colom’s donors.

Data centers are the central issue in a county judge race in Arkansas, and the veto vote is Oct. 27. Data center regulation is the main issue in the Pulaski County judge race between Democrat Wendell Griffen, a former Arkansas Court of Appeals judge and circuit judge who defeated the incumbent in the March primary, and Republican Michael Rushin, a real estate and property management executive, KATV reported Oct. 6. The $6 billion AVAIO project near Wrightsville is the only data center currently in the works in the county. The quorum court passed a data center ordinance in September, County Judge Barry Hyde vetoed it, and Griffen wants the veto overridden. Nine of 11 justices of the peace are required. If elected, Griffen would be the county’s first Black county judge. Griffen says the county should regulate data centers “wisely, rigorously, fairly, and comprehensively.” Rushin wants regulations that are “firm and fair” and says the county must stay open for business.

Oct. 13: comments close at the FCC on the future of E-Rate. Docket WC 26-133. Reply comments Nov. 12. The inquiry asks whether the school and library internet program should be limited to rural areas, conditioned on device restrictions, or ended. The South receives about $999 million a year from it.

Oct. 13: applications close for the National Digital Inclusion Alliance’s 2026 Digital Inclusion Trailblazers. The recognition program for local governments doing digital inclusion work.

Oct. 16: the meet-and-confer deadline in the Digital Equity Act case. The parties were to confer by this date. The government has said it targets December to reopen the competitive grant program, without the racial and ethnic minority covered population a judge found unconstitutional but severable in July.

Oct. 19: early voting begins in Arkansas. Eight days before the Pulaski County quorum court takes up the veto override.

Oct. 20: the Memphis City Council takes up its data center ordinances again. Ordinance 5982, the 12-month moratorium, at third and final reading. Ordinance 5985, the large-load review district that would replace it. Ordinance 5986, the cooling and water amendment. City Hall, 125 N. Main St.

Oct. 22: the first Fairfield County, South Carolina town hall on data centers, in Jenkinsville. Ridgeway follows Jan. 7 and Winnsboro Jan. 21, with a Planning Commission hearing March 25. Fairfield County is 51.4% Black.

Oct. 27: the Pulaski County quorum court is expected to vote on overriding the data center ordinance veto. Nine of 11 justices of the peace are required. Until then the county has no data center regulations.

Oct. 29: a federal court in Oxford, Mississippi holds a first conference in the xAI noise case. The court is expected to begin deciding whether the case over the Southaven power plant proceeds as a class action. The putative class is more than 10,000 people.

Oct. 29: the Lifeline computer matching programs begin in Georgia and Connecticut, and comments close the same day. Food assistance records will be checked against Lifeline eligibility. Each program runs 18 months.

Oct. 29: the FCC’s open meeting. On the tentative agenda: a proposed vetting process for recipients of high-cost universal service support, and proposed updates to captioning, audio description and device compatibility rules.

Nov. 2: comments close on the proposed rule that would take race and ethnicity off the 2030 census short form. Docket USBC-2026-0628 on Regulations.gov. The same day, registration closes for telephone testimony in the Virginia merger case.

Nov. 3: general election. Two Georgia Public Service Commission seats. The Mississippi U.S. Senate race. The Pulaski County judge race in Arkansas.

Nov. 5: the last in-person hearing on the Dominion and NextEra merger, in Richmond. Two to 5 p.m., second-floor courtroom, 1300 E. Main St. No advance registration. The only one of the three that Richmond, Petersburg and Tri-Cities readers can reach without a long drive.

Nov. 9: written comments close in the Dominion and NextEra merger case. For anyone who cannot reach Richmond in person.

Nov. 12: reply comments close in the FCC’s E-Rate proceeding. Docket WC 26-133.

Nov. 30: the date Danielle Dillard has to be out of her house in Southaven. Her landlord accepted a buyout from the data center company.

Jan. 11, 2027: the deadline for the Virginia State Corporation Commission to decide the merger. Unless the review period is extended, which the window to request closed Sept. 30.

Still tracking. We are following data center and zoning stories in Virginia, Tennessee and Louisiana that are not ready to run here. They will be in a coming issue once we can report them in full.