This week, the Federal Communications Commission launched a proceeding seeking public comment on creating a mechanism to ensure access to accurate, simple-to-understand information about broadband Internet access services. The aim is to enable consumers to comparison shop when choosing broadband services and providers that best meet their needs and match their budgets. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directs the FCC to adopt rules that will require the display of broadband consumer labels that include pricing information. The FCC is now proposing labels that disclose information about prices, introductory rates, data allowances, broadband speeds, and management practices, among other things. One label would be for "fixed" broadband service (think service from your local cable or telephone company); the other would be for mobile broadband. The FCC has a number of questions about the proposed labels concerning the content, display location, accessibility, an existing transparency rule, enforcement and implementation issues. Here's a quick look at what the FCC is asking the public to weigh in on.

As of October 2021, the majority of people in AT&T’s 21-state footprint were not aware of the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program. According to a survey conducted by Recon Analytics on behalf of AT&T, 55% of consumers were not aware of the EBB program. Recon Analytics used Qualtrics to conduct the online survey, which garnered more than 10,000 respondents. Only 12% of respondents were aware of the program and had applied for EBB benefits. Curiously, 13% of respondents who were aware of the program and qualified for it had not yet applied for benefits. According to the AT&T survey, there were some substantial variations in awareness of the EBB benefits. Sixty one percent of people in Kansas were not aware of the program, while things were better in Kentucky, where 47% of respondents were unaware. Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders had the highest awareness followed by Black or African Americans. It’s possible that grassroots outreach campaigns were more effectively targeting these groups. People 44 years of age and younger also had more awareness of EBB than those over age 44.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will testify February 1 before Senate appropriators about how to implement the $48 billion in broadband dollars that the infrastructure law slated for her department. The session will take place before the panel’s Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee, which Sen Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) chairs. Shaheen was one of the lead negotiators who put together the law’s $65 billion for broadband, in tandem with Raimondo and Sen Susan Collins (R-ME), who also sits on this subcommittee. As appropriators, these senators are now tasked with determining what resources to give the department and its National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which will helm the infrastructure law’s broadband investments and is currently on a hiring spree. Shaheen wants to ensure broadband funding is “distributed as intended,” she said. “There is bipartisan determination in Congress to enhance our high-speed internet capacity, and I believe we can continue to get important work done here.”

The government is working to transfer some federally-used spectrum to the private sector to help build mobile broadband networks, including 5G. The National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) facilitates these transfers, which can be complex and take years. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that NTIA lacks a formal process for planning these transfers. We recommended that it develop one to help address challenges and risks before they arise. Almost all spectrum has been allocated for the federal government, commercial sector, or other non-federal use. However, the demand for spectrum continues to grow, especially from the commercial sector as it seeks to deploy and improve 5G mobile service. NTIA is responsible for managing the federal government's spectrum use and plays a key role alongside the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other federal agencies in helping to reallocate federal spectrum for commercial use. GAO was asked to review NTIA's spectrum management activities. This report examines, among other objectives, the extent to which NTIA (1) has developed a planning process for spectrum reallocations and (2) identified and assessed the competencies needed to manage federal spectrum's use. GAO reviewed relevant NTIA documentation and compared it with applicable leading practices. GAO interviewed officials from NTIA and other agencies, representing a variety of non-generalizable viewpoints.

Far faster mobile broadband speeds and new services on your 5G-enabled smartphone or a greater risk that your next flight crashes on landing? This should be a false choice in tech-savvy America. Yet, according to the airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration, it is an unresolved risk. The primary problem has been a steady breakdown in coordination and cooperation between the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates business use of increasingly crowded public airwaves, and the other federal agencies that rely on wireless frequencies or regulate a multitude of industries, like the airlines. Unlike the Obama administration, which coordinated spectrum policy from the White House, the Trump administration had an ad hoc spectrum policy that failed to articulate a coherent set of national priorities that would supersede the natural NIMBY reflex of spectrum incumbents. The FAA fiasco is just the latest in a series of standoffs over the past four years between the FCC and federal agencies defending the spectrum status quo.

So what is to be done? First, the Biden White House needs to send a clear message that the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration is in charge of coordinating federal agency spectrum policy, just as Congress intended. Second, the NTIA and FCC need to collaborate on an updated national spectrum policy and coordination process. Third, the NTIA and any affected federal agencies need to participate actively in FCC rulemakings from beginning to end. They need to put up or shut up concerning interference concerns—and submit technical studies and data, just as private industry does. Fourth, the NTIA and the Department of Defense—by far the largest federal spectrum user—need to follow through rapidly on proposals to create an automated database to more efficiently coordinate spectrum sharing among agencies and with the private sector. Finally, the White House needs to be what FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr recently called “the adult in the room.”

[Michael Calabrese directs the Wireless Future Project at New America’s Open Technology Institute]

Comcast said it added fewer broadband customers than in recent quarters, a slowdown that comes after record growth during the height of the coronavirus lockdowns. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said the company's Peacock streaming service and its broadband business were two of Comcast’s top priorities for the year ahead. The company added 212,000 broadband subscribers in the fourth quarter 2022, down 61 percent from the same quarter in 2021. Its cellphone business, Xfinity Mobile, added 312,000 customers, while Comcast’s pay-TV business continued to shrink, losing 373,000 subscribers. Cable chief Dave Watson said the broadband slowdown was largely due to fewer people changing homes. Even with the slowdown in broadband subscriber growth, the Comcast Cable segment, comprising the broadband, cable-TV, landline and mobile units, made up the bulk of revenue with $16.41 billion, up 4.5 percent from the year-earlier period. Comcast’s results since the third quarter show how consumer habits changed drastically at the height of the pandemic lockdowns—when Americans relied heavily on home broadband connections for work and school—and are now slowly going back to normal. Industry analysts are forecasting cable broadband providers will continue to face pressure and see slowing growth as telecommunications competitors such as AT&T build out their broadband strategies.

A confidential settlement involving Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] appears to undercut a key Republican senator’s stated reason for opposing her nomination. The delay in confirming Sohn is preventing Democrats from securing a majority at the independent regulatory agency, which would allow them to pursue policies such as reinstating Obama-era net neutrality rules. Republicans say Sohn will pursue heavy-handed regulation and have criticized statements she has made against conservative media outlets. Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker (R-MS)'s stated opposition to Sohn revolves around an October 2021 order by a New York federal court shutting down Locast, a nonprofit where the nominee served on the board. Locast, which retransmitted local TV signals over the Internet, was ordered to pay ABC, CBS, NBCUniversal, and Twentieth Century Fox $32 million for illegally streaming their programming. But since then, the broadcasters agreed to settle for a fraction of the decree — roughly $700,000 in cash and liquidation of used computer servers. A provision in the settlement states the broadcasters released individuals from liability. Broadcasters agreed to file a satisfaction of judgment by January 27 if all the terms are met. Sohn signed the confidential agreement on October 27, a day after President Joe Biden announced her nomination