The Connect Illinois program launched in 2019, pairing the then-largest state matching grant program for broadband expansion -- the $400 million Connect Illinois Broadband Grant Program - - with an appropriately ambitious commitment to digital equity and inclusion. The investment also included $20 million to enable the existing 2,100-mile Illinois Century Network to provide all school districts in the state with access to free gigabit broadband. Combined, the strategic capital investment sought to ensure that all Illinois households, businesses, and community anchor institutions had access to affordable, reliable, and high-performing broadband. At its core, the comprehensive Connect Illinois vision of broadband ubiquity is one of broadband equity – targeting resources to close gaps and expand opportunity for unserved and underserved communities throughout Illinois. To create an ecosystem of digital equity and inclusion, the State of Illinois introduced complementary programming to pair with its historic $420 million capital investment that, combined, seeks to address the three key pillars of digital equity: affordable in-home broadband service; access to personal computers; and digital literacy training and ongoing technical support. Over time, this approach has grown to include programs emphasizing local capacity building and planning, regional engagement, digital literacy, used computer refurbishment and distribution, and introduction of on-the-ground support for communities and broadband adoption assistance for households.

Included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill is $65 billion for broadband deployment. Most of that, $42 billion, is slotted for subsidies to rural communications networks, promising to conquer the digital divide. This is doubtful. The government has already expended at least $200 billion (in 2021 dollars) on the Universal Service Fund established by the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Most of the money was meant to extend networks that serve rural areas, but some was also allocated to schools and libraries, healthcare facilities and low-income mobile phone users. This money had little impact on network infrastructure. In 2011 the Federal Communications Commission found that 19 million people, living in seven million households, couldn’t get state-of-the-art broadband service. Ten years later, despite another more than $50 billion in subsidies for high-cost networks, the number in underserved areas was as many as 30 million, according to President Biden. It’s unlikely that another big batch of carrier subsidies will complete broadband infrastructure. The government has operated with a stunning lack of accountability, despite a steady stream of warnings that the system needs far better oversight. We need to eliminate rampant waste, fraud and abuse before we hand out another $42 billion to internet service providers.

[Thomas Hazlett is a professor of economics at Clemson and Chapman universities. He served as chief economist of the FCC from 1991 to 1992.]

Convergence between wireline and wireless networks is one of those ideas that feels like it’s perpetually on the horizon. But a perfect storm of industry trends – virtualization, disaggregation, 5G, fiber, cloudification – has finally come together to bring the long-sought-after approach within reach. Dave Allan, distinguished engineer at Ericsson and leader of the Broadband Forum’s Wireless-Wireline Convergence Work Area, summed up why convergence is such a big deal and why operators continue to chase it. According to Allan, once an operator’s core network becomes a common digital platform “the services are common, the tooling is common, [and] you can provide ubiquitous policy irrespective of access to a given subscriber for things like parental controls, corporate access et cetera. That’s kind of huge.” The Broadband Forum has been working shoulder to shoulder with wireless standards body 3GPP on convergence specifications since early 2017, when the groups held a joint meeting to look at use cases, set goals and establish how work should proceed. They’ve been actively writing specifications to make convergence a reality since 2019, with 3GPP addressing this in its Release 16 standard. Broadband Forum finished its Phase 1 specifications addressing fundamentals of convergence, including how to support a 5GRG on a wireline network and how to begin transforming the network, last year. Allan said it is currently in the midst of work on Phase 2, which will tackle expanded deployment options, added functionality, new revenue sources and other improvements.

Rep Brett Guthrie (KY-02) introduced the Simplifying Management, Reallocation, and Transfer of Spectrum Act, or SMART Spectrum Act (H.R.5486). The SMART Spectrum Act would create an information sharing capability at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to allow more commercial use of spectrum licensed for federal government use. The federal government is currently not fully utilizing all of the spectrum licenses that are allocated for federal use. The SMART Spectrum Act would make an information sharing capability at the NTIA to facilitate users as they operate within a band of spectrum. Federal and non-federal users would share spectrum allocated for federal government use based on what time, where geographically, and in which band of electromagnetic spectrum these users are operating. This would mitigate harmful interference and ensure reliability for users. Making more spectrum available to non-federal users is important as 5G and other wireless technologies are being deployed in the United States.

Reps Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Chair and Ranking Member of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced legislation to combat the online sale of stolen, counterfeit, and dangerous consumer products. The Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers (INFORM Consumers) Act (H.R.5502) directs online platforms that allow for third-party sellers of consumer products to verify the identity of high-volume third-party sellers, which will prevent organized retail crime. The bill will also ensure that consumers can verify basic identification and contact information for high-volume third-party sellers of consumer products on online marketplaces. The INFORM Consumers Act directs online marketplaces to verify these sellers by acquiring the seller’s government ID, tax ID, bank account information, and contact information. High-volume third-party sellers are defined as vendors who have made 200 or more discrete sales in a 12-month period amounting to $5,000 or more. The legislation has received support from a diverse array of organizations including Consumer Reports, the Buy Safe America Coalition, the Coalition to Protect America’s Small Sellers, and the National Association of Manufacturers.

Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, sat before a Senate subcommittee for more than three hours and described how the social media giant has prioritized its profits over public good. In her testimony, Haugen called on Congress to regulate Facebook and require more transparency from the company on its practices. She also urged lawmakers to reform a key federal law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields internet companies from legal liability for content posted by its users. But she warned that focusing on reforms that would make Facebook only liable for content that its users post would not be sufficient to fix Facebook's problems. Instead, she suggested that lawmakers revise Section 230 to make Facebook responsible for its algorithms, which are used to rank content. In doing that, Haugen thinks the company would get rid of engagement-based ranking, which feeds a cycle of feeding harmful, inflammatory or untrue content to users. Calls for Section 230 reform are a common refrain from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who generally agree that changes need to be made to the law. As a result, there's already a slew of legislation aimed at reforming the liability shield that's being considered. C|Net put together this guide to help you better understand what Section 230 is and how lawmakers may revise it to rein in the power of social media giants, like Facebook.