By its own motion, the Federal Communications Commission waived its rules to allow rate-of-return carriers (i.e. a telephone company that provided local service prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which owns most of the local loops and facilities in a serving area) to include their actual rates for consumer broadband-only lines for the first three months of 2019 on their FCC Form 509, rather than imputing revenues based on the maximum rate that would have been assessable. The FCC has twice previously granted a waiver of this rule, in part because imputing revenues based on these maximum rates would have the effect of significantly overstating the revenues for many carriers, causing a significant reduction in universal service support. 

The town of Bar Harbor, Maine, is planning a $750,000 project to connect fiber optic cable to town-owned properties so its staff can have broadband internet access at work. The town has such access now but will have to start paying $45,000 a year to Charter Communications to continue using the company’s fiber network infrastructure because of an expiring agreement that has allowed the town to use the fiber at no cost beyond what it pays its internet service providers. The town pays currently approximately $4,500 per year for internet access. Instead of paying $45,000 annually to lease fiber from Charter, the town instead could put that money toward developing its own fiber-optic network that would connect to all of the town’s roughly two dozen buildings. The projected cost of building the network would be around $750,000, but the town’s expenses in building and maintaining the network likely would be significantly less if it finds cost efficiencies and entities that could lease unused fiber from the town. Those specific cost savings to the town would become more apparent after the town puts out a request for proposals, likely in the latter half of 2021, members of the committee said.

Although the digital divide didn’t start with COVID-19, the pandemic has put into stark relief the need to bridge this divide once and for all. The solution—providing tens of millions of Americans with high-speed, reliable broadband—might seem like a daunting task. But our research has found that Colorado and other states are leading the way in connecting communities to high-speed, reliable internet. States will be key to completing the job of expanding access to broadband; they play a critical and often overlooked role in shaping the way broadband reaches our doorsteps and enables stakeholders from the public and private sectors to participate in connectivity efforts. State governments recognize that a single policy or a one-time funding initiative is not enough to get their citizens online. So, they are creating policies and programs that reinforce each other and will help reach the goals that are necessary to fully deploy broadband. For example, state legislatures have passed complementary policies that set service speed targets, set up funding and financing mechanisms, designate who can provide service, and regulate access to the infrastructure that providers need to build and operate networks. These policies create and support the work of state broadband programs. States also have the tools and expertise already in place—including dedicated staff—to help local stakeholders overcome the barriers to internet access.

[Anna Read is an officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ broadband research initiative]

One of the first priorities of 2021 should be to enable schools and libraries to use E-Rate to help students and patrons get online from home. To support these extensions is to uphold the program’s founding principles of universal service and access. So what is the hold up? For one, Congress can barely figure out how to pass its annual appropriations bills. Although there is a chance that E-Rate changes could come in the final push for COVID-19 relief legislation, relying on lawmakers typically means waiting, and waiting, and waiting. To move more quickly, change could come from within the Federal Communications Commission. But even though education groups and digital inclusion organizations have been pleading with the FCC all year to make these changes, the agency hasn’t budged.

Taking steps to modernize E-Rate could and should come in the very first days of the Biden administration. Let’s stop getting stuck in a 1996 model of how schools and libraries operate. Students who are struggling to get online deserve better. FCC policies should recognize and support what learning looks like today, not stifle it.

[Lisa Guernsey is deputy director of education policy and director of the Learning Technologies Project at New America.]

Federal investigators reported on evidence of previously unknown tactics for penetrating government computer networks, a development that underscores the disastrous reach of Russia’s recent intrusions and the logistical nightmare facing federal officials trying to purge intruders from key systems. While many details remained unclear, the revelation about new modes of attack raises fresh questions about the access that Russian hackers were able to gain in government and corporate systems worldwide. 

Rep Greg Walden (R-OR), one of the most influential conservative figures in the technology and telecommunications policy landscape, is set to retire from Congress. He pushed back on GOP-led calls for the Federal Communications Commission to step in on Section 230, even as FCC Chairman Ajit Pai faces pressure to do so before he leaves the agencyin January: “I'm not so sure that I want the FCC in the middle of all of this,” Rep Walden said. “Even if some think they have the authority, I'm not convinced that's the case. And I'm not sure they're the right agency to be in the middle of speech police.” Walden said talk of amending Section 230 “needs to be hammered out in the halls of Congress.” He doesn’t think a Biden White House will re-energize data privacy talks. “This was the time to do it with the president that would have signed a balance [bill] into the law,” Rep Walden said. “I don't think that President-elect [Joe] Biden will be as interested in that.” Rep Walden argued that the way to break the partisan impasse on the issue is “by coming up the middle” politically, and perhaps by tapping the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

What's next? While Rep Walden said he’d like to “stay involved” in some of the key telecom and tech issues he’s worked on, he also name-checked energy and health care as two other sectors that intrigue him. “I'm genetically predisposed to telecom given my father started in the original wireless business in the 1930s,” he said. “So that's always been a passion, but I also enjoy these other issues a lot.”