Shira Ovide

The pandemic created a sense of urgency about bringing internet access to more people and empowering them to use technology as a necessity of modern life.

There are useful lessons from a saga over home internet service in Canada. What has been a promising, albeit imperfect, system that increased choices and improved internet service for Canadians is poised to fall apart.

There is no silver bullet to the complex economic, cultural, technical and policy barriers to bringing more of the world’s citizens online. Advocates of expanding internet use say that being connected is an economic engine and increasingly a necessity of modern life. An internet connection is also a minimum condition for internet companies to reach potential customers.

Home internet is one of the most maddening services in the United States. But since the pandemic showed just how bad things have become, we’re beginning to see some change. Decades of one failed policy show how far the US has to go to achieve better, fairer online access for all. Over the past two decades, government regulators have written and rewritten rules that have landed on a straightforward goal: that Americans who live in apartment buildings may pick their internet provider, even if the landlord has a preferred provider.

People have been predicting the death of cable TV for a long time, but this really might be it.

Amazon, Boeing and a bunch of other companies may soon join Elon Musk’s SpaceX in beaming internet service from space. Yes, it is cool, but the companies involved and people excited about satellite internet tend to overstate how much good it can realistically do. There are limits to the technology, and structural barriers to internet access cannot be solved by technology alone. Nearly all policy experts and technologists whom I’ve spoken to about satellite internet services say the same thing: Satellite internet won’t be realistic for most people and places.

The White House’s new infrastructure plan includes a proposal to spend $100 billion to extend fast internet access to every home. Its central premise is a powerful one: To achieve the internet that we all deserve, the federal government must be more involved — but not too much. The White House plan could be the shakeout we need.

A Q&A with New York Times reporter Cecilia Kang. Why does the net neutrality fight matter? Many Americans have only one or possibly two options for home internet providers. Those companies can in theory decide whether we can view Netflix or YouTube crystal clear or if we see the pinwheel of death as those sites stutter.

Each country has its own car safety regulations and tax codes. But should every country also decide its own bounds for appropriate online expression? We probably don’t want internet companies deciding on the freedoms of billions of people, but we may not want governments to have unquestioned authority, either. Regulating online expression in any single country — let alone in the world — is a messy set of trade offs with no easy solutions. Let us lay out some of the issues:

President Biden is inheriting tricky tech questions including how to rein in powerful digital superstars, what to do about Chinese technology and how to bring more Americans online. Here’s a glimpse at opportunities and challenges in technology policy for the new Biden administration: