COVID-19 has exacerbated the digital “haves” and “have nots” through remote work, learning, and telehealth, yet our government’s main agency to support greater access and adoption is inadequately funded and functioned to meet this moment. AT&T recently published a blogpost lamenting the rise in contributions to the Universal Service Fund (USF) and arguing for funding reform.
Four Indiana cities, including Indianapolis, have jointly filed suit in a local state court, seeking to collect “franchise fees” usually charged to cable operators from Netflix and several other video operators, none of which are cable providers. Defendants also include Disney Plus and Hulu, as well as satellite TV companies DirecTV and Dish Network.
Epic Games, locked in a legal battle with Apple and Google over developer payments, now says Apple is threatening to cut the company off from developer accounts and iOS and Mac development tools. This decision, expected to go into effect Aug. 28, might have widespread effects on App Store development.
In light of the ongoing pandemic, the Federal Communications Commission finds good cause to extend its prior waivers of certain Lifeline program rules governing recertification, reverification, general deenrollment, subscriber usage, income documentation, and documentation requirements for subscribers residing in rural areas on Tribal lands through November 30, 2020. The FCC will continue to monitor the situation to determine whether any additional extension of these waivers is appropriate.
Despite subscribers' response to Verizon's 1-Gigabit service, the telco has no plans for offering the faster speed out of the current footprint. Verizon CFO Matt Ellis said his company was "selling a lot of gigabit speed," due in part to the demand for video streaming and other services during the coronavirus pandemic. "If you think about Fios footprint in the essentially the DC to Boston corridor, we're not expanding outside of that geography, but we are seeing strong demand for that product," Ellis said.
Cable operators, cognizant that the broadband wave the industry has been riding for more than a decade could eventually come to a halt, have quietly been building out their service footprints, expanding the pool of potential high-speed internet customers and ensuring a lengthy growth runway for their most profitable service. In the second quarter, both Charter Communications and Comcast reported record broadband subscriber growth despite the ongoing pandemic. Charter led the way with the addition of 850,000 broadband customers (588,000, when certain COVID-19 related programs are excluded).
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is offering a suggestion to lawmakers: Perhaps forget about loading the Department of Agriculture with cash to subsidize broadband buildout and supply the FCC with those funds instead?
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