North Carolinians aren’t the quickest adopters when it comes to broadband. Despite the fact that around 94.8 percent of North Carolinians have access to high-speed internet, only 59.4 percent of households adopt it, according to the Federal Communications Commission. “It’s pretty low. That’s a good 40 percent of the population that has access but is still not adopting,” said Amy Huffman, NC Department of Information Technology’s digital equity and digital inclusion program manager. It affects rural and urban areas equally. “That’s a big problem,” she said. On Oct 31, Huffman joined government officials and community leaders as part of Gov Roy Cooper’s (D-NC) Task Force on Connecting North Carolina focused on tackling some of the barriers contributing to North Carolina’s digital divide. Huffman said there are a number of reasons behind the state’s low adoption rates. Among them: service and equipment costs, lack of digital literacy and information skills, and not understanding how the internet is relevant to people’s daily lives. A survey conducted by the department found that 67% of the households said cost is the number one reason they do not have internet access. Another 24% said high-speed internet access is not available in their area.

Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) talked on the phone with President Donald Trump to outline his views on the Federal Communications Commission’s pending decision on how to get the coveted 5G-ready airwaves known as the C-band into wireless providers’ hands. Sen Kennedy said the conversation was positive. Sen Kennedy also met with FCC staff on spectrum auctioning, as the lawmaker had intended. Sen Kennedy wants to persuade President Trump that an FCC-run auction is the way to go instead of the private sale that satellite incumbents are seeking (a private sale would be faster for getting these airwaves out for 5G, they argue, but critics worry about likely litigation and less cash going to the American public). Although the FCC is an independent agency not subject to White House command, Trump has not been shy about voicing his preferences on plenty of issues facing such agencies. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has said he wants to make a decision on the matter this fall. 

Not all lawmakers share Kennedy’s appetite for intervention. Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-SD) has said the issue belongs to the Commerce Committee, where he chairs the telecom subcommittee. “We would like to let that take its course” at the FCC, said Chairman Thune. “We obviously want to work with [Kennedy] and see if we can satisfy some of his concerns. We think the key is to get as much of that spectrum made available for commercial use as fast as possible, and we think the FCC has the same interest.” But House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Biggs (R-AZ) endorsed Kennedy's views. He tweeted at President Trump that an "FCC-led public auction best supports free enterprise, competition, and transparency while fully protecting the American Taxpayer."

Mozilla is urging Congress to reject the broadband industry's lobbying campaign against encrypted DNS in Firefox and Chrome. The Internet providers' fight against this privacy feature raises questions about how they use broadband customers' Web-browsing data, Mozilla wrote in a letter sent to the chairs and ranking members of three House of Representatives committees. Mozilla also said that Internet providers have been giving inaccurate information to lawmakers and urged Congress to "publicly probe current ISP data collection and use policies."

DNS over HTTPS helps keep eavesdroppers from seeing what DNS lookups your browser is making. This can make it more difficult for ISPs or other third parties to monitor what websites you visit. "Unsurprisingly, our work on DoH [DNS over HTTPS] has prompted a campaign to forestall these privacy and security protections, as demonstrated by the recent letter to Congress from major telecommunications associations. That letter contained a number of factual inaccuracies," Mozilla Senior Director of Trust and Security Marshall Erwin wrote.

"Unfortunately, we are not able to honor your request," Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons tells Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) about the senator's ask that the agency release its 2012 staff report on Google. A chunk of that report was accidentally released back in 2015, revealing that FTC staffers judged that Google had caused "real harm" in the search and online ads markets as part of an investigation that ended with no charges brought against the company. Sen Hawley, a vocal tech critic, had asked all five FTC commissioners in a September letter to publish the rest, arguing that the law gives them the power to do so given the public's "strong interest" in knowing what the bipartisan commission discovered about Google's competitive practices. Chairman Simons was not swayed. "I understand your desire for transparency," Simons told his fellow Republican, but he argued that staff reports are exempt from FOIA as they are "deliberative, pre-decisional, and an integral part of the FTC's decision-making process."