The next time a big company, and especially a telecom company, tells lawmakers and regulators that a multibillion-dollar merger will result in lower prices for consumers, I hope everyone in the room breaks out in laughter. At this point, it’s patently obvious that such pledges of price reductions are almost always hogwash. Prices rarely if ever go down after a big merger.
To better understand how we can improve connectivity throughout Eastern Oregon, we recently visited Hermiston, Pendleton and Weston. We heard from folks who experience the divide every day. Local officials told us how the lack of high-speed broadband access is hurting the economy and even makes some residents less optimistic about the future. Rural health care providers told us how important telemedicine was in rural towns, and demonstrated how they use broadband to connect patients with doctors online, without patients needing to drive long distances to an office or hospital.
In 2016, Libraries Without Borders established the Wash and Learn Initiative (WALI) to expand the access and accessibility of information to families waiting for their clothes to wash and dry in laundromats. This article discusses the private-public partnerships between small, mom-and-pop laundromat businesses and library branches that have made this work possible.
On July 6, 2018, Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O'Rielly wrote to Mikel Schwab, Civil Chief, Assitant US Attorney for the Department of Justice in the Districts of Guam & the NMI, regarding 911 Fee Diversion.
YouTube has announced a slew of new features it hopes will help makes news on the platform more reliable and less susceptible to manipulation. The company is also investing $25 million in grants to news organizations looking to expand their video operations as part of a larger $300 million program sponsored by YouTube's sister company, Google.
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