June 2016

Hillary Clinton's campaign is quietly assembling a roster of high-powered tech and telecommunication advisers as the Democratic front-runner develops a digital agenda focused on protecting network neutrality and modernizing government. Unlike her Republican foe, Donald Trump, who has little policy infrastructure, Clinton is cultivating a network of tech advisers comprised of former officials, industry lobbyists and generous donors — many of whom could be in line for key positions at the Federal Communications Commission and other agencies if she becomes president.

Leading the charge for Clinton is a trio of government veterans, apparentlyt: Alec Ross, a well-connected former Clinton aide at the State Department who has championed global Internet freedom and the power of social media; Ben Scott, who also worked under Clinton at State and was a leading figure at public interest group Free Press; and Jennifer Pahlka, who helped found the US Digital Service, an effort launched by the Obama Administration to bring better tech to government after the HealthCare.gov meltdown.

A national LTE network for US public-safety agencies would also give consumers better mobile service if a startup gets to build a futuristic network-sharing system. The company, Rivada Mercury, is one of the players that wants to build the so-called FirstNet LTE network, the government's plan to unify mobile communications for first responders.

The federal government is allocating a block of spectrum and about $6.5 billion in funding for the network, which is supposed to start going live in 2017. Rivada Mercury is a partnership that includes major mobile network vendors, Intel Security and other companies. At the center of this group is Rivada Networks, a startup with a technology called DSA (Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage). DSA is an automated, real-time market for frequencies on a wireless network. It lets multiple service providers bid for any frequencies that are available at a given time and place on the network. Rivada’s software makes the spectrum available at wholesale to the highest bidder. Users on that commercial network would get to use the extra capacity at that time. Some mobile devices already have radios for the spectrum FirstNet will use, called Band 14, and a wide range of devices should have them by the time the network goes live, Rivada says. In this case, DSA would sell frequencies not currently being used by police, firefighters or other public-safety users. If those services needed the network, it would hand the spectrum over to them within milliseconds, Rivada says.

Over the last five years, the Spanish town of Jun (pronounced hoon), whose population barely tops 3,500, has become one of the most active users of Twitter anywhere in the world. For the town’s residents, more than half of whom have Twitter accounts, their main way to communicate with local government officials is now the social network. Need to see the local doctor? Send a quick Twitter message to book an appointment. See something suspicious? Let Jun’s policeman know with a tweet. People in Jun can still use traditional methods, like completing forms at the town hall, to obtain public services.

By running most of Jun’s communications through Twitter, the town has not only shaved on average 13 percent, or around $380,000, from the local budget each year since 2011, but he also has created a digital democracy where residents interact online almost daily with town officials. By incorporating Twitter into every aspect of daily life — even the local school’s lunch menu is sent out through social media — this Spanish town has become a test bed for how cities may eventually use social networks to offer public services.