Daily Digest 10/10/2019 (Appropriations and the Digital Divide)

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
Table of Contents

Broadband

Funding to Close the Digital Divide  |  Read below  |  Alexandra Levine  |  Politico
Comcast incorrectly charged 2,000 customers for exceeding data cap  |  Read below  |  Jon Brodkin  |  Ars Technica
Cox Boosts Speeds of Connect2Compete Low-Income Broadband  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  Cox Communications

Wireless

After Court Loss, FCC Conforms Streamlining Wireless Infrastructure Order  |  Read below  |  Federal Communications Commission
Moody’s: 5G Could Cut Into Cable’s Broadband Pricing Power  |  Multichannel News

Satellites

Microsatellite data can help double impact of agricultural interventions  |  University of Michigan

Energy

Utilities want to retain their own space on 6 GHz band  |  Daily Energy Insider
Northern California blackouts may mean mobile outages  |  Washington Post
Why the PG&E Blackouts Spared California's Big Tech HQs  |  Wired

Platforms

For tech, it's all hard problems now  |  Read below  |  Scott Rosenberg  |  Axios
Facebook’s Hands-Off Approach to Political Speech Gets Impeachment Test  |  New York Times

Elections

In Response to Senate Intelligence Cmte Report Sen Klobuchar Urges Rules Chairman Blunt Immediate Markup for Honest Ads Act  |  US Senate

Security

President Trump Green-Lights Some Sales to Huawei  |  New York Times
Editorial: Does the US need its own Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei?  |  Fierce

Ownership

The company that owns your local news might also influence federal politics  |  Open Secrets

Content

The economics of streaming is changing pop songs: Songs are getting snappier, with shorter intros and earlier choruses  |  Economist, The

Research

Americans and Digital Knowledge  |  Read below  |  Emily Vogels, Monica Anderson  |  Research  |  Pew Research Center

Diversity

How This Google Team Is Trying to Make the Company’s Products More Inclusive  |  Fortune

Journalism

NYT Reporters Discuss The Tech They Use: When Social Media Becomes a Wartime Necessity  |  New York Times

Company News

AT&T Sells Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands Assets to Liberty for $1.95B  |  Multichannel News

Stories From Abroad

EU publishes report on coordinated risk assessment of 5G networks security  |  European Commission
Without Naming Huawei, EU Warns Against 5G Firms From ‘Hostile’ Powers  |  New York Times
China criticizes Apple for app that tracks Hong Kong police  |  Associated Press
Apple Removes App That Tracked Hong Kong Police  |  New York Times
EU Competition Commissioner Vestager warns Big Tech she will move beyond competition fines  |  Financial Times
European Union’s new approach to quickly stopping what it sees as anticompetitive behavior  |  Wall Street Journal
 
Today's Top Stories

Broadband

Funding to Close the Digital Divide

Alexandra Levine  |  Politico

Telecommunications and utility groups are urging congressional appropriators to continue investing in rural broadband in fiscal year 2020. “The health and productivity of the people we represent throughout rural America are dependent on access to high-quality broadband,” The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, the Utilities Technology Council and nearly two dozen other groups wrote in a letter to Senate and House appropriators. The groups are pressing lawmakers to include $605 million to fund the Department of Agriculture's ReConnect Program, which provides loans and grants to pay for broadband in remote areas without access. “Continued direct federal investment is critical to closing the digital divide and enabling rural consumers to fully participate in our 21st Century economy and society,” they tell Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Ranking Member Kay Granger (R-TX).

Comcast incorrectly charged 2,000 customers for exceeding data cap

Jon Brodkin  |  Ars Technica

Comcast's data-usage meter gave thousands of customers inaccurate readings for two months because of a software bug, causing the broadband provider to incorrectly charge about 2,000 users for exceeding their monthly data caps. Comcast has admitted the error and said it is giving refunds and additional credits of $50 each to customers who paid data overage fees that shouldn't have been assessed. Comcast said it's still trying to figure out if the bug is in the meter software, the billing software, or in the interaction between the two. What Comcast knows for certain, the spokesperson said, is that the problem was fixed when it rolled back to the previous version of its billing software.

Cox Boosts Speeds of Connect2Compete Low-Income Broadband

Press Release  |  Cox Communications

Cox announced it has increased speeds for the company's low-cost internet product, Connect2Compete, which is available to families with school-aged children who are enrolled in low-income assistance programs. Download speeds are now up to 25 megabytes per second for all Connect2Compete customers. Upload speeds have also increased from 1 to 3 megabytes per second. The speed increase is automatic, no action is required by the customer to benefit from faster internet speeds. Cox has connected 500,00 people to the internet through Connect2Compete, and over 60 percent were connected to the internet for the first time. 

Wireless

After Court Loss, FCC Conforms Streamlining Wireless Infrastructure Order

The Federal Communications Commission has officially rescinded the portion of its rules that exempted certain wireless facilities deployments from local environmental and historic preservation reviews. The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau indicated there is no need to put the order out for public notice and comment since it is simply implementing a court mandate from which the FCC had no discretion to deviate. 

Over the objections of local government officials and the reservations of FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC voted in Sept 2018 to streamline the path to small cell deployment, including the rules on site reviews, billing it as crucial to the rollout of 5G wireless service. But the US Court of Appeals for the DC circuit in Aug 2019 ruled that the FCC did not justify its deregulation of those reviews and vacated that part of the larger wireless deployment deregulation order. The court mandate to roll back the rules became effective Oct 7, when that ruling was published in the Federal Register, and the FCC put out the order Oct 8 repealing "the subsection of the Commission’s rules implementing the small wireless facilities exemption, and delet[ing] a cross-reference to that subsection contained elsewhere in the Commission’s rules." The result of the order is that "deployments of small wireless facilities are subject to review to the same extent as larger wireless facilities pursuant to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA)." 

Platforms

For tech, it's all hard problems now

Scott Rosenberg  |  Axios

The tech industry spent the last two decades connecting the world and getting computers into every home and hand — but that's turning out to have been the easy part. Now, every problem tech companies face is fiendishly hard. Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple have entered a world where their product innovations and profit margins are beginning to matter less than their ability to navigate treacherous political, social, and ethical rapids. Policymakers and engineers are both accustomed to making and living with tradeoffs, but someone has to make a final call over where these choices land. The fight now is over who that will be: companies, governments, or the public.

Research

Americans and Digital Knowledge

Emily Vogels, Monica Anderson  |  Research  |  Pew Research Center

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that Americans’ understanding of technology-related issues varies greatly depending on the topic, term or concept. Some findings:

  • While a majority of US adults can correctly answer questions about phishing scams or website cookies, other items are more challenging. About one-quarter of Americans (24%) know that private browsing only hides browser history from other users of that computer, while roughly half (49%) say they are unsure what private browsing does. 
  • 48% of adults correctly answered that a privacy policy is a contract between websites and users regarding how their data will be used, while 45% know that net neutrality refers to the principle that internet service providers should treat all traffic on their networks equally.
  • Americans’ knowledge of the business side of social media companies is also relatively low. Just 29% of Americans correctly named WhatsApp and Instagram as two companies owned by Facebook. And when presented with a photo of Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, only 15% of adults correctly identified him.

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Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.


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