Marguerite Reardon

President Joe Biden wants net neutrality regulations back on the books. In his executive order on competition, Biden urged the Federal Communications Commission to restore Obama-era net neutrality rules and to take other measures to promote broadband competition, including asking the FCC to require broadband companies to provide transparency on pricing. Net neutrality supporters applauded the executive order and calls for the FCC to restore net neutrality protections.

The Emergency Connectivity Fund to subsidize broadband connectivity and devices for schools and libraries in response to the coronavirus pandemic will begin accepting applications for funding starting June 29.

Federal and state governments have earmarked billions of dollars to build out fast internet service, but most plans don't address one of the biggest reasons people don't have broadband at home: They can't afford to pay for service. If the early days of the Emergency Broadband Benefit program are any indication, there is big demand for a more substantial subsidy. In the first week of the program, more than 1 million households signed up. Some civil rights and consumer groups are joining with the broadband industry to push Congress to make the broadband subsidy permanent.

Beyond supporting students, information being collected by schools across the country could prove useful when addressing the problem of the digital divide. The work to close the so-called homework gap, exacerbated when the coronavirus pandemic shut down schools and forced 50 million students to suddenly adopt remote learning, could also provide the federal and state governments a roadmap toward fixing the broader digital divide problem. The homework gap is a subset of a much larger d

The digital divide and the homework gap haven't gone away, even with new attention and funding directed toward emergency relief.

When Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and lawmakers in the Mississippi legislature got $1.2 billion in federal money from the first stimulus bill in March, they decided to do something different.

President Joe Biden's presence in the Oval Office over the next four years will have a major influence on the tech sector, including infrastructure policy on broadband deployment and national security issues involving Chinese tech companies. The president and his team will also play a role in how to handle the growth and influence of social media giants.

An old battle over who governs the internet will likely reignite as Democrats take control of the Federal Communications Commission following the inauguration of Joe Biden. Reinstating Obama-era net neutrality rules thrown out under the Trump administration will likely be a top priority for the agency, experts say. At stake in this battle is who, if anyone, will police the internet to ensure that broadband companies aren't abusing their power as gatekeepers. Supporters of net neutrality say rules are necessary to ensure broadband companies aren't abusing their power as gatekeepers.

The tech world will be holding its breath to see whether President Donald Trump can pull out a victory.

President Donald Trump is asking the Federal Communications Commission to review Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that gives social media companies their legal protection. The president wants rules that'll let the agency investigate complaints that social media companies discriminate against certain speech on their platforms. Any role in policing social media will be awkward for the FCC, which has cast itself as anti-regulation under Ajit Pai, its Trump-appointed chairman.