The industry's pre-coronavirus agenda isn't vanishing — but its priorities have already been reshuffled. These agenda items have jumped to the top of the list: 1) Transforming healthcare, 2) Distance learning and the digital divide, 3) Network bandwidth and resilience, and 4) Misinformation and media polarization. 

The coronavirus crisis has reset the tech industry's ecology with the speed and force of a meteor hitting a planet. Just as the industry's tools and services have shaped our experience of this disastrous moment, the pandemic has reshaped the industry itself in a matter of weeks. Big Tech's giant apex predators will strengthen their dominance while facing new threats. In the middle ranks of the industry, where freshly IPOed newcomers on the way up pass middle-aged firms on their way down, chaos and carnage loom. Tech's teeming underbrush of small startups wi

Three elements form the ground on which the tech giants built their success — cheap hardware, connectable software and the freedom to innovate. Each of these foundations already faced threats that the virus crisis has now amplified.

Some people who just lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic are finding that they have lost something else — phone and internet access.

Sen Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) is urging the Federal Communications Commission to "immediately call on telecommunications providers serving law enforcement facilities across the nation to provide free phone calls & video visitations to better enable families to communicate with incarcerated loved ones during the #COVID19 pandemic.” Although the Federal Bureau of Prisons has made these calls and video visits free during the outbreak, state and local facilities may still charge exorbitant amounts for such communications services.

As the governors of  California, Oregon, and Washington plan on how best to open their states' economies, CENIC, Link Oregon, and Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP) offer their ultra-broadband research and education telecommunications networks and services to:  

In late Oct 2019, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society released a report that explores how leaders at all levels of government can push toward a more connected future. One of the key findings is that state governments must play a crucial role in expanding Americans’ access to broadband services. The report, Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s, examines ways that policymakers at all levels of government can help expand reliable broadband access to every American by the end of the decade.

When public health requires social distancing and quarantine, closing the digital divide becomes central to our collective safety and economic security. In particular, we should leverage the Federal Communications Commission’s $8 billion in universal service funding, and focus our efforts on students and vulnerable, struggling Americans. Each week, as millions more Americans apply for unemployment and food assistance programs - - the FCC needs to enhance its Lifeline program, the only federal program with the sole mission of bringing affordable communications to low-income Americans and a c

Over the past month, healthcare providers from psychiatrists to family physicians have rushed to telemedicine through video conferencing or healthcare apps. Treating homebound patients virtually can soften the blow of an infectious disease outbreak like Covid-19, experts say, by reducing traffic to hospitals and doctor’s offices already struggling with limited resources and higher infection risks. It works the other way, too; telemedicine allows quarantined doctors to work from home.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced measures to award the first $30 million of $50 million appropriated to the agency in the CARES Act. The $30 million in the funding phase will be distributed to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the US territories, and the Freely Associated States based on population.