Kathleen Burke

Public Knowledge and New America’s Open Technology Institute, on behalf of the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, filed comments with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in response to the agency’s Request for Comment on developing a national spectrum strategy. The filing urges the NTIA to adopt a national spectrum strategy that will not only secure our nation’s future as a wireless leader but also serve the public b

Rarely does Congress speak as definitively and clearly as it did with Section 1754: ordering the Federal Communications Commission, within 2 years to enact regulations to “eliminate” existing digital discrimination on the basis of “income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin” and to prevent it from recurring in the future. The FCC should interpret this instruction for what it is: a rebuke of the last 25 years of failed policies and “light touch” regulation under the apparent delusion that for the first time in 90 years “the market” would bring universal service to all

Public Knowledge has released its newest white paper, “Back to the Spectrum Future: The 20th Anniversary of the Spectrum Policy Task Force,” by Public Knowledge Policy Counsel Kathleen Burke. The paper proposes adopting a backcasting model rooted in core public interest principles to help guide our spectrum policymakers toward a wireless future that serves and includes all Americans.

These days, there isn’t a lot of harmony in the world of technology policy. But there is a bright spot of bipartisanship in a section of our airwaves: the 5.9 GHz band. In 2020, the Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to modernize the rules in this spectrum to allow both Wi-Fi and automotive safety tech to operate. This win-win was celebrated by proponents of car safety and broadband alike. But now the Department of Transportation (DOT) is working on a study that may purposely have been designed to undo this decision.

Public Knowledge filed a Petition for Declaratory Ruling urging the Federal Communications Commission to declare Voice over Internet Protocol as a Title II “common carrier” telecommunications service. Communications Workers of America, Center for Rural Strategies, National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, Next Century Cities, The Public Utility Law Project of New York, and The Utility Reform Network joined the filing.

Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (including Public Knowledge, New America, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Access Humboldt, Center for Rural Strategies, Tribal Digital Village, the Institute for Local Self Reliance, and the Schools, Health, Libraries & Broadband Coalition) filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission in response to the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on regulatory fees for 2021. The filing outlines why the Commission should reject its flawed and confusing proposal to require unlicensed spectrum users to pay regulatory fees.

Public Knowledge filed a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider the agency’s determination under Chairman Pai that its deregulatory agenda was more important than public safety, the infrastructure access necessary for broadband competition, or universal service.

How the Federal Communications Commission manages the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program will not only greatly affect the EBB Program’s effectiveness at helping those in need get connected, it will help inform how to best implement potential future broadband subsidies to address broadband affordability, which Congress continues to contemplate.

The record shows extensive opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order and the grave danger it poses to public safety and public health, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis. Public health and public safety officials detail in the record how both officials and the public writ large rely on mass-market retail broadband internet access services (BIAS).