Telecom operators need to get their artificial intelligence (AI), SDN and cloud ducks in a row or risk becoming a "dumb pipe" for connectivity, according to a report by GlobalData. “Telecom operators are increasingly seeking to move beyond the dumb pipe of simple connectivity and diversify in the cloud, AI and SDN," said Laura Petrone, senior analyst for GlobalData. "This trajectory will bring them into direct competition with technology interlopers that are also actively targeting segments that telecoms operators might once have seen as their own.”

While research on the impact of broadband continues to increase, a broad understanding of what being digital ready entails is missing. This study—based on a 1,214 nonrepresentative household survey weighted by income, age, and educational attainment—developed a digital readiness index (DRI) score based on three related but distinct dimensions: device & internet access (DIA), digital resourcefulness and utilization (DRU), and internet benefits and impact (IBI). All scores calculated were normalized to a range from 0 to 10 for easier comprehension and comparison, where a higher score indicates a higher level for that particular digital readiness dimension. Some key findings:

• Regarding device & internet access, nonmetro respondents relied more on their smartphones and mobile data to connect to the internet compared to their metro counterparts. In the end, nonmetro did have a lower DIA score compared to metropolitan respondents.
• Regarding the digital readiness index score, metro households had a higher score (5.2) compared to nonmetro (4.5), leaving ample room for improvement given 10 is the highest score. More interestingly, when it comes to digital readiness a metro-nonmetro divide was not as large and surpassed by income and occupation differences.
• Of the three dimensions analyzed, internet benefits and impact had the lowest score. In other words, the impact of the internet on households—as measured by this study—is lagging. This implies that focusing on improving digital literacy and skills is critical to ensure the benefits of internet continue to accrue to households.

Gov Ralph Northam (D-VA) announced his proposed budget will feature major investments in Virginia in support of broadband infrastructure, the first installment of a historic commitment to expanding access to all unserved Virginians. The governor’s proposal would increase funding for the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI), a program that incentivizes internet service providers to expand their service to Virginians that are unserved, to $50 million in Fiscal Year 2020. The funding would be a significant increase to the $4 million already appropriated on an annual basis. This state funding will be matched by local, federal, and private funds, helping to connect tens of thousands more Virginians. Additional investments will support the technical expertise needed to assist local governments in developing detailed plans to connect all their citizens. Gov Northam envisions these commitments as the first installments of a multi-year investment totaling $250 million over the coming years, providing connection speeds significantly greater than 10 megabits (10,000,000 bits) per second. For comparison, standard dial-up speeds are 56 kilobits (56,000 bits) per second.

The attorney general for the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against Facebook for allowing Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, to gain access to the names, "likes" and other personal data about tens of millions of the social site's users without their permission. The lawsuit filed by Karl Racine marks the first major effort by regulators in the US to penalize the tech giant for its entanglement with the firm. It could presage even tougher fines and other punishments still to come for Facebook as additional state and federal investigations continue. “Facebook failed to protect the privacy of its users and deceived them about who had access to their data and how it was used,” Racine said. "Today’s lawsuit is about making Facebook live up to its promise to protect its users’ privacy.”

This was the year when Big Tech companies were humbled, their reputations tarnished, and their share prices clobbered by a tidal wave of political outrage over misinformation, censorship, and data abuse. This public flogging may go too far. The risk grows of interventions that sound satisfying but don’t fix, and in fact may worsen, the underlying problem in this arena: an absence of competition. If there is a case for government intervention, then, this is it: more muscular antitrust oversight. Antitrust has risks of its own: denying companies synergies they might achieve if free to acquire or exclude competitors. Nor are trust busters free of their own political agendas. Yet these risks seem much less consequential than those that come from regulating content or privacy, and worth taking for the sake of more competition, the most effective antidote to monopolists’ abuses.

A coalition of 22 consumer and public health advocacy groups led by Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and sanction Google for the deceptive marketing of apps for young children. Google represents that the apps in the “Family” section of the Google Play Store are safe for children, but the apps often violate federal children’s privacy law, expose children to inappropriate content, and disregard Google’s own policies by manipulating children into watching ads and making in-app purchases. Lawmakers echoed the call for FTC action. “We’re repeatedly confronted with examples of tech companies that are just not doing enough to protect consumer privacy – and I’m particularly concerned about what this failure means for our children,” said Sen Tom Udall (D-NM). “When real-world products are dangerous or violate the law, we expect retailers to pull them off the shelves. Google’s refusal to take responsibility for privacy issues in their Play Store allows for app developers to violate COPPA, all while Google cashes in on our children’s activity. It is past time for the Federal Trade Commission to crack down to protect children’s privacy.”