I wanted to use my remarks to talk more broadly about the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to connect all Americans. The FCC’s first and foremost mission is to help ensure that every American can access advanced communications. On my first full day in this job in Jan 2017, I convened a meeting of the FCC’s staff. I told them that our number one priority would be closing the digital divide and bringing the benefits of the Internet age to all Americans. And for good reason. The FCC’s founding statute, the Communications Act of 1934, explicitly directs the FCC to make wire and radio communication "available . . . to all the people of the United States.” And second, the FCC aims to promote innovation and investment across the communications sector. With each new breakthrough, we increase the value of being connected and unlock opportunities to improve the lives of our citizens. 

The pandemic has ended any debate about the need to expand Internet access to all Americans. The FCC has been pursuing an aggressive agenda to connect all Americans—an agenda that precedes and will outlast COVID-19.

The new fervor for tech antitrust has so far overlooked an equally obvious target: US broadband providers. “If you want to talk about a history of using gatekeeper power to harm competitors, there are few better examples,” says Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate Gigi Sohn. Sohn and other critics of the four companies that dominate US broadband—Verizon, Comcast, Charter Communications, and AT&T—argue that antitrust intervention has been needed for years to lower prices and widen internet access.

The Institute for Local Self Reliance, which promotes community broadband projects, recently estimated from Federal Communications Commission data that some 80 million Americans can only get high-speed broadband service from one provider. “That is quite intentional on the part of cable operators,” says Susan Crawford, a professor at Harvard Law School. “These companies are extracting rent from Americans based on their monopoly positions.”

Making US broadband significantly more competitive would require larger and more coordinated action by the White House and Congress. Options worth considering include reversing some of the acquisitions that turned Comcast and others into nation-spanning giants, and mandating that companies allow competitors to use their networks, as is common in Europe, says Joshua Stager, a senior policy counsel at New America's Open Technology Institute. Those would be more notable antitrust actions than seen from the US government in a while, but Stager believes the case is there. “The backlog of evidence is certainly there, and with increasing pressure on the networks, much more could come to the surface,” he says.

Back in 2017, 5G was a big focus of my remarks. But back then, 5G was largely hypothetical and aspirational. This year, I’m speaking to you just a few days after the release of the first 5G iPhone. Over the past three-plus years, 5G has gotten real—very real. How did we get from there to here? Obviously, many of you in the audience led the way. But I’d like to think the Federal Communications Commission put a tailwind at your back. I’d like to walk through the actions we’ve taken at the FCC to accelerate the arrival of the 5G revolution.

How did stakeholders respond to school closings and the digital divide --  and what lessons can be learned from those efforts to close the digital divide going forward? This report highlights case studies at the state, city, and school district level and concludes that there are three key steps in the still unfinished endeavor of closing the K–12 digital divide during the pandemic.

1. Assess who needs connectivity and devices and where they live.
2. Determine which devices and connectivity options are desirable and available and how to distribute them.
3. Find the money to pay for it all.

Finally, while digital literacy is not a focus of this particular report, we found that another critical component to ensuring high-quality distance learning is a holistic digital inclusion1 approach, including digital literacy, parent and teacher training, and tech support— all of which requires additional planning, staff, and funding.

Current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has led the agency for nearly four years, and it’s unclear how much longer he plans to stay on. A President Donald Trump win carries a high likelihood that FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr will be selected — not elected — as the next chairman. And his first task will certainly be to regulate social media in America.

Even with a Joe Biden victory, Carr’s position at the FCC means he is likely to lead the GOP’s policy war on Big Tech for the foreseeable future, and he’s prepped and ready for the long haul. He regularly chats with politicians about how to revise Section 230, one of the most pivotal internet speech laws in legislation. “Reforming 230 is just the start. That’s just step one,” Commissioner Carr said. “We need to go beyond 230 reform. We need to strengthen the tools we have in antitrust. We need to adopt new transparency rules that would be outside of the 230 framework.”

He was asked whether these proposals were at odds with mainstream conservatism, as in, does the right’s threats against tech mean that the future of the GOP is pro-regulation now? Commissioner Carr got dodgy. “There is a way to talk about this as a continuation of conservative principles,” he argued. “We stand against concentrations of power that are going to limit freedom and limit individual liberty. You can very neatly draw a thread from traditional, Reagan-era, conservative principles all the way through where we should stand on Big Tech.” And then he conceded a little, before dodging again: “You may describe it as more regulatory. I don’t necessarily quibble with your framing. I can frame it as a rejection of abject corporatism.”