The Federal Communications Commission’s nearly decade-old program, Measuring Broadband America, is the US government’s gauge of whether home internet-service providers are holding up their end of the bargain when they promise users certain speeds. Companies wield tremendous influence over the study and often employ tactics to boost their scores, according to interviews with more than two dozen industry executives, engineers and government officials. As a result, the FCC’s report likely gives consumers an unreliable measure of internet providers’ performances by overstating speeds. “It’s hard to trust the numbers when you know” of efforts to massage the results, said veteran cable and telecom consultant Mark Lubow. Internet experts and former FCC officials said the setup gives the internet companies enormous leverage. “How can you go to the party who controls the information and say, ‘please give me information that may implicate you?’ ” said Tom Wheeler, a former FCC chairman who stepped down in Jan 2017. Internet experts said the FCC’s entire testing approach needs to be rethought to be more useful for consumers. The current test measures how much capacity internet providers supply to a household, in a vacuum, but doesn’t monitor the internet performance that users actually experience while streaming, gaming or surfing the Web, which can be affected by overtaxed neighborhood networks, Wi-Fi interference or traffic jams deep in the guts of the internet.

While the buzz around 5G is often focused on smartphones (and the technology’s promise of lag-free gaming and streaming), the cellular technology stands to hypercharge industries far beyond entertainment. With its high bandwidth, low latency (i.e., the ability to transfer lots of data with minimal delay), and high reliability, 5G is faster and more dependable than 4G, and so robust that it can replace wired connections—bringing everything from factory robots to fleets of autonomous vehicles online. Also poised for big change is agriculture. Sensors and artificial intelligence could take some of the guesswork out of nature’s cycles, allowing farmers to remotely monitor weather patterns, livestock wellness, and soil nutrients, while autonomous driving and cloud computing could make equipment more efficient. “Our ability to have machines sending data in both directions is really important,” says Lane Arthur, John Deere’s director of digital solutions. Add to it the fact that the US farming industry has lost roughly 7 million workers since the 1950s, and you have a new frontier for Silicon Valley’s problem solvers: the farm of the future.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) is confident that if Vice President Joe Biden were to be elected president, he would work with the Democrats to restore net neutrality rules. Net neutrality tends to be an important issue with a lot of people in the tech community and younger voters that want to see a level playing field and make sure ISPs don't block content, he said, but that while it is an important issue, he doesn't see it as a "primary" issue (no pun intended). Chairman Doyle has net neutrality legislation that would restore much of the 2015 Open Internet Order, including the rate regulation forbearance. He was asked to respond to candidate Bernie Sanders' support for rate regulation of broadband and Sanders was an outlier. Doyle said he was not focused on what this or that candidate said they would do or wouldn't do, though he said that would be a question to ask him once there was a nominee. But he did say forbearance is key to building bipartisan support for net neutrality legislation. Democrats, Republicans and ISPs all have said they support legislation to end the legal ping-pong game of rules, rule reversals, and rule challenges. 

House committee leaders are still unable to strike a final deal on key privacy issues and are instead opting to release a discussion draft as bipartisan talks continue. House Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is spearheading those talks in the chamber. She will release a draft bill as early as next week that will not address hotly contested issues over whether a national standard should override state laws or enable consumers to sue companies over privacy violations. A spokesman for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) said the bill is the result of bipartisan discussions. But unlike in the Senate, House leaders indicated they have no plans to put out dueling privacy proposals along party lines at this stage. “Right now we’re focused on trying to see if we can find common ground with Chairwoman Schakowsky” and House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), said Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), the top Republican on the committee. Chairwoman Schakowsky has received no indication from panel Republicans that they will put out their own standalone proposal. “I think that’s because from the beginning we’ve really tried to keep them in the loop and to work with them,” she said. And will the two sides ever agree on a private right of action? Rep McMorris Rodgers is interested in hearing more about a possible compromise between the two parties on a narrow right to sue — something Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) has said he’s willing to entertain. But she added she has not been a part of any discussions on such a deal.

It is no secret that, in an information environment characterized by deep tensions between President Donald Trump and national news organizations, Americans are divided in their trust of the news media. A new Pew Research Center exploration of more than 50 different surveys conducted by the Center – combined with an analysis of well over 100 questions measuring possible factors that could drive trust in the news media – confirms that in the Trump era nothing comes close to matching the impact of political party identification. On item after item, Republicans consistently express far greater skepticism of the news media and their motives than Democrats, according to this analysis that focuses on trust in the news media during 2018 and 2019. Even more telling, the analysis reveals that divides emerge within party – particularly the Republican Party – based on how strongly people approve of Trump’s performance as president. 

About three-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (31%) say journalists have very low ethical standards, roughly six times the 5% of Democrats and Democratic leaners who say this. Trump’s strongest approvers, though, express even greater suspicion: 40% of Republicans who strongly approve of Trump’s job performance say journalists’ ethics are that low. That is true of far fewer Republicans who only somewhat approve of Trump or disapprove of him: 17% and 12%, respectively. Highly engaged partisans are even more polarized in their views than the two parties overall. For example, there is a 46 percentage point gap between all Democrats and Republicans (including those who lean to each party) in whether they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence that journalists will act in the best interests of the public. This jumps to a 75-point gap between the highly politically aware who associate with the two parties (91% of highly politically aware Democrats vs. 16% of highly aware Republicans).