COVID-19 highlights society’s inability to cope, even amid the technology prowess of the US. In the land that invented the microchip, we have neglected the fundamentals. One particular concern is how internet broadband is not available to many workers and students in some rural and inner-city areas and on Native American lands. If you can’t work or take classes from home because you don't have internet, you are at a distinct disadvantage.
By this Order, the Federal Communications Commission denies a further extension of time for filing comments and reply comments on the Public Notice seeking to refresh the record in the above-captioned Restoring Internet Freedom and Lifeline proceedings. On April 16, 2020, the City of Los Angeles, the County of Santa Clara, the Santa Clara
The coronavirus pandemic happened and, in a breath, home internet went from desired option to life-sustaining necessity. If the shutdown is responsible for limiting the spread of the infectious respiratory disease that has killed more than 1,100 Pennsylvanians in a month, then the internet is why it isn’t more. And that is why the World Wide Web has to be wide enough to work for the whole world. Broadband access needs to be viewed as a utility little different from water or electricity or gas. It needs to be as accessible as the sidewalks that connect us to our schools and jobs and banks.
The court in Mozilla required the Federal Communications Commission to address how its Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the agency’s net neutrality rules and removed FCC jurisdiction over broadband, impacted public safety, pole attachments, and the Lifeline program. Instead of opening a new rulemaking proceeding, the FCC issued a Public Notice that fails to explain how the agency ultimately intends to proceed on this matter.
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