The Federal Communications Commission heard reports from leaders of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, International Bureau, Office of Engineering and Technology, and Office of Economics and Analytics on their work over the last four years. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau’s presentation summarized the accomplishments of its staff in contributing to the Commission’s efforts to make 5G deployment a reality. the International Bureau streamlined licensing regulations and paved the way for high-speed satellite broadband connectivity, developed robust rules for mitigating orbital debris and reformed Team Telecom processes for foreign ownership review. The Office of Engineering and Technology highlighted its work to make an unprecedented amount of spectrum available for unlicensed uses, such as Wi-Fi, and to provide analysis in aid of the FCC’s effort to make spectrum available for 5G and other advanced licensed wireless services. The Office of Economics and Analytics, the newest office at the FCC, has implemented large data collections, covering a range of subjects including broadband deployment, supply chain, and inmate calling. OEA is also implementing new, wide-ranging Federal data governance mandates agencywide.

Four specific steps government, with industry’s cooperation, can take to make availability and affordability a reality for every American:

1. Identify where broadband is unavailable with geographic precision: Congress appropriated $65 million for the Federal Communications Commission to implement more accurate broadband mapping.  In the wake of the FCC’s recent successful $9 billion initiative to fund rural broadband deployment (known as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction) – and with more than $11B set aside for the next phase of that effort – better maps are the next critical step. Accurate maps will allow us to precisely target subsidy dollars to close any remaining rural broadband gaps.
2. Modernize the Federal Communication Commission’s Lifeline program: It is time to modernize and digitize the Lifeline program.  Government assistance programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), allow participants to seamlessly receive benefits and make payments electronically via an electronic card system.  The Lifeline program should do the same.  Also, to be effective, the Lifeline subsidy must be updated to support the full cost of broadband connectivity. These two reforms are essential to bringing Lifeline into the broadband age.
3. Give equal weight to wired and wireless solutions: With wireless technologies offering greater performance, wireless broadband solutions are increasingly preferred to close both affordability and availability gaps. Proposed solutions should therefore continue to support connectivity goals in a technology-neutral manner so long as they can meet defined performance criteria.  Being overly prescriptive on technology solutions could result in some homes being on the wrong side of the digital divide.
4. Enact a policy framework that incorporates sustainable funding mechanisms: The government must act to make essential broadband support sustainable.  Lifeline funding, in particular, must be put on more stable footing. In lieu of placing a tax on an ever-shrinking base of traditional interstate voice services, we have advocated for direct Congressional appropriations to meet the growing broadband affordability needs.

Each of the big social platforms handled the challenges of the Trump presidency in its own unique way, scrambling to address or neutralize various urgent and contradictory concerns from users, advertisers, lawmakers and occasionally the president himself. But there was one idea that none of them could resist trying, no matter how little it had done for the last platform to use it: the informational label. Since 2016, users across platforms have been informed that some things they were seeing or sharing were disputed by outside fact checkers. An informational label alone — particularly one that doesn’t provide information that couldn’t easily be found elsewhere — represents a particular set of assumptions about what the problem is in the first place. It assumes that users sharing disinformation are merely mistaken; that assertions of external authority and expertise are persuasive; that a Wikipedia article is enough to transport someone from a flat earth back to the round one they chose to leave behind; or that a warning about forbidden information won’t be enticing, but discouraging. The labels did, however, provide insights into how those who run the platforms were thinking at the time. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, the platforms seemed to say, but the labels resembled just a few more additional fluorescent tubes installed in the ceiling.