Jon Brodkin

More than two-thirds of New York City's 3.1 million households have just one or two broadband providers offering service to their homes, according to a new "Truth in Broadband" report issued by the city government. The report comes as NYC pursues a lawsuit against Verizon alleging that it hasn't met its broadband deployment obligations.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is leaving the Federal Communications Commission after nine years of service. As part of the FCC's Democratic majority from 2009 through 2016, Commissioner Clyburn repeatedly voted for consumer-protection regulations over the objections of Internet service providers. More recently, Commissioner Clyburn has been on the losing end of many votes as the FCC's new Republican majority deregulates the broadband and telecom industries. Clyburn's term expired in June 2017, but commission rules allowed her to stay until the end of 2018 if she had chosen to do so.

Internet service providers celebrated  when the Federal Communications Commission voted to eliminate nationwide net neutrality rules that prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. But now Internet service providers in California are terrified that they could end up facing even stricter rules being considered by the California legislature.

Facebook recently teamed up with Google, Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon in order to kill a privacy law that's being considered in California. The five companies each donated $200,000 to create a $1 million fund to oppose the California Consumer Privacy Act, a ballot question that could be voted on in the November 2018 state election. If approved, the law would make it easier for consumers to find out what information is collected about them and to opt out of the sale or sharing of any personal information.

The Federal Communications Commission's proposed ban on Huawei and ZTE gear in government-funded projects will hurt small Internet providers' efforts to deploy broadband, according to the Rural Wireless Association (RWA), a lobby group for rural Internet service providers. Under FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal, ISPs who use federal money to build or expand broadband service would end up with fewer options for buying network gear. This would "irreparably damage broadband networks (and limit future deployment) in many rural and remote areas throughout the country," the RWA told the FCC. 

Gov Kate Brown (D-OR) will sign a network neutrality bill into law April 9, making Oregon the second state to pass a net neutrality law since the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal nationwide rules. The new law was written narrowly in an attempt to survive lawsuits from Internet service providers. Instead of imposing prohibitions on all Internet providers, the law forbids state agencies from purchasing fixed or mobile Internet service from ISPs that violate the core net neutrality principles laid out in the soon-to-be-dead FCC rules.

Gov Larry Hogan (R-MD) allegedly had a habit of blocking Facebook users and deleting comments when people criticized him, but a lawsuit has forced him to adopt a more open social media policy. Four Maryland residents sued the governor in a US District Court in August 2017, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maryland. The ACLU announced that a settlement has been finalized, requiring Gov Hogan to implement a new social media policy within two weeks.

Charter Communications has lost a lawsuit in which it accused a workers' union of sabotaging the Charter network during an ongoing strike. Charter sued IBEW Local Union No. 3 in a New York state court in October in 2017, alleging that union leadership "orchestrated" vandalism of coaxial and fiber cables that had caused outages for tens of thousands of subscribers. The lawsuit said vandalism hit Charter cables in New York City more than 125 times during the strike, which began in March 2017 and is now entering its second year.

Comcast would support a ban on paid prioritization as long as there is an exception for "specialized services" that benefit consumers, said Comcast senior executive VP David Cohen. Cohen's suggestion of a paid-prioritization ban with an exception for specialized services is similar to an early version of network neutrality rules that was passed in 2010 but thrown out in court in 2014.

USTelecom, a lobby group that represents AT&T, Verizon, and other large telecommunication companies, plans to sue states and cities that try to enforce network neutrality rules. "Broadband providers have worked hard over the past 20 years to deploy ever more sophisticated, faster and higher-capacity networks, and uphold net neutrality protections for all," USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter wrote.