As states begin to receive funds from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Act, they need to lay the groundwork for high adoption and fiscal sustainability said Brookings Institute panelists. The majority of the BEAD program’s $42.5 billion in funding has yet to be disbursed, and state allocations are expected by June 2023. But without efforts to drive adoption, the government’s investment in connectivity will fall short, panelists agreed. “Overwhelmingly, we know that if you are low-income in America, you are less likely to have access to a broadband connection… [It’s] not just about building out these connections — we really do need to be thinking about long-term solutions to affordability,” said Kathryn de Wit, project director for the Broadband Access Initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts. Beyond affordability, other barriers to adoption include a lack of digital literacy, costs associated with devices, and concerns about privacy. Treating digital equity and access to technology as a priority rather than a “nice-to-have” would have benefits reaching far beyond individual consumers, de Wit said.

[12/23/2022]

The Broadband Data Task Force announced that the Broadband Data Collection filing window for submitting broadband availability and other data as of December 31, 2022, will open on Tuesday, January 3, 2023. Starting on Jan 3, facilities-based broadband service providers may begin to file in the BDC system data that reflects where they made mass-market broadband internet access service available as of December 31, 2022. Such data must be submitted no later than March 1, 2023. Entities that choose to submit verified availability data in this filing window, such as authenticated state, local, and Tribal governmental entities who are primarily responsible for mapping or tracking broadband coverage in their jurisdictions, must also submit their availability data as of December 31, 2022, no later than March 1, 2023. Filers should submit their data in the BDC system here. Providers who are already licensees of the Fabric will receive an email from CostQuest providing them with access to the new Fabric data on a rolling basis as the opening of the filing window approaches

The bipartisan leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee wants stakeholders to have more time to challenge the accuracy of the Federal Communication Commission's new broadband availability map given what they said were the “significant flaws’ already discovered in the draft map. The FCC has conceded the mapping is an iterative process that will be improved by stakeholder challenges. The senators said, “it is absolutely critical that states, tribes, localities, and stakeholders have the necessary time to help ensure that the FCC’s final maps accurately reflect unserved and underserved areas.” They cited some examples where the FCC maps don't jive with a Microsoft analysis of where broadband is and isn't, and are clearly troubled by the disparity. For example, they say, in Washington state, 60% of the residences and businesses in one town on Tribal lands were missing from the FCC map, while in Mississippi, the state broadband office says a “tremendous amount” of addresses were missing in “high-growth” areas.

[12/22/2022]

The communications marketplace is in a substantial state of change and re-examination. During the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic drove millions of people to work and learn remotely, and consumers’ demand for fixed and mobile broadband, video, and audio services increased significantly. At the same time, there were considerable developments in the regulatory, technological, and business environment that will likely influence competition in the sector in the coming years. The FCC sees an emerging set of issues and opportunities presented by these changes in the marketplace: some trends that are encouraging and others that may pose challenges. First is the potential for more competitive broadband markets. Second is change in the wireless sector in the 5G era. Third is the rapid expansion of LEO satellite constellations and the emergence of new players in the commercial satellite industry.

Does the entry and exit of competitors to/from broadband services markets have large effects on the quality of broadband plans offered to consumers? Answers to this question inform the design of subsidies to improve broadband in underserved areas and antitrust policy. Researchers found strong evidence that market structure (competition) is very important in explaining the evolution of maximum available speeds available from legacy technology Internet service providers (ISPs) serving US urban census blocks over 2014–2018. Differences in the 2018 market structure seem to be by far the most important predictor of variation in improvements to legacy broadband service quality registered across U.S. duopoly census blocks over this period. Maximum offered legacy ISP speeds with a single fixed wireless ISP entrant have a negative, but statistically insignificant effect, which we speculate is due to the lower quality service entrant shifting the competitive focus toward price, and away from higher speed. With exit, and a duopoly census block devolving into a legacy monopoly, the maximum legacy ISP speed offered dropped by about 320 Mbps. Going from two to three legacy ISPs adds about 60 Mbps. A second fiber entrant resulted in about 90 Mbps added to the maximum speeds available from a legacy ISP. 

There are suddenly a lot of open-access networks springing up around the country. Traditionally, open-access networks have been built by local governments such as the public utility districts (PUDs) in Washington. Today, there are also open-access networks being built by commercial network owners. I’ve been asked by several internet service providers (ISPs) if they should consider operating on an open-access network. Here are a few of the most important factors to consider about operating on an open-access network:

• Capital Expenditures: One of the primary reasons to think about using somebody else’s network is the savings from not having to fund and built a new network.  For small ISPs without a lot of borrowing capacity, an open-access network might be one of the easiest ways to get more customers.
• Economy-of-scale: Another reason to consider operating on somebody else’s network is that anything that makes your ISP larger adds to economy-of-scale. There is a big benefit to spreading the costs of overheads like OSS/BSS systems and corporate staff costs over as many customers as possible.
• Trust: One of the scary parts of being on an open-access network is being captive to the processes and prices charged by the network owner. 
• No Technology Advantage: It’s an odd situation for an ISP to be operating on a fiber network and yet have no technology advantages over many of your competitors. 

Representatives David Cicilline (D-RI) and Ken Buck (R-CO) introduced the Platform Integrity Act (HR 9695), a bipartisan bill to correct the judicial misinterpretation of a provision of the Communications Decency Act [47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1), if you're scoring at home] by recognizing that online platforms may be held responsible for the content that they promote on their platforms. It does not create any new cause of action or basis for liability; it simply clarifies that section 230(c)(1)’s liability exclusion does not extend to content that platforms themselves take an active role in proliferating. The Platform Integrity Act makes clear that platforms have no excuse for amplifying extremism online. The Platform Integrity Act would:

• Offer a simple and common-sense clarification of the scope of 47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1) by removing a bar to recovery for victims who have suffered harm from acts of terrorism, hate, or extremism enabled by online platforms’ content suggestions.
• Reject the judicial misinterpretation of 47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1) whereby courts have concluded, for example, that the statute bars victims of terrorist attacks from seeking relief from a social-media company for its proactive role connecting the perpetrators through friend- and content-suggestion algorithms.
• Adopt the correct interpretation of the statute reflected in the separate opinion of the late Honorable Robert Katzmann in Force v. Facebook, Inc., 934 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019), wherein he concluded that “it strains the English language” to construe 47 U.S.C. 230(c)(1) “to say that in targeting and recommending [extremist] writings to users,” “thereby forging connections” and “developing new social networks,” online platforms are protected from liability by the statute.
• Apply only to content that the platform actively promotes, leaving in place Section 230(c)(2)’s protection of platforms’ good-faith application of terms of service and community guidelines.

Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is simultaneously raising the profile of space within the Federal Communications Commission and the FCC within the space industry. In November 2022, Chairwoman Rosenworcel announced plans to create a new Space Bureau within the agency. Space topics, like licensing satellites, had for decades been a part of the FCC’s International Bureau, but she argued the proposed reorganization would free up resources to address the growing number of satellites, particularly in broadband mega-constellations. “You can’t just keep doing things the old way and expect to lead in the new,” she said in a speech announcing the proposed reorganization. A little more than a month earlier, Rosenworcel and her fellow commissioners voted unanimously on a new rule for deorbiting satellites. Both moves show that the FCC wants to take a bigger role in commercial space regulation. The industry has welcomed some of those efforts, including the proposed Space Bureau. Some, though, are wary of other efforts, including the new deorbiting rule and recent dockets on FCC roles in the satellite servicing field. They worry the FCC could be seeking to expand its role even as the National Space Council develops its own approach to overseeing new space activities. 

[12/23/2022]

More than one year ago, President Joe Biden nominated longtime net neutrality proponent and consumer advocate Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to the Federal Communications Commission. The full Senate has yet to vote on her confirmation. That failure has left the FCC politically deadlocked with two Republican commissioners and two Democratic ones. While the FCC has been able to agree on relatively noncontroversial policies, the political tie at the agency has left it unable to move forward with more contentious issues -- including net neutrality. President Biden consistently said he supports a return to the former net neutrality rules, which prohibit broadband carriers from blocking or throttling traffic, and from charging higher fees for prioritized delivery. Those rules, which were passed in 2015, were repealed during the Trump administration. Former FCC head Ajit Pai, who shepherded the repeal, claimed the rules depressed investment -- a claim disputed by the pro-neutrality advocacy group Free Press. Consumer advocates have been pressing for a full Senate vote on Sohn for more than a year. In 2023, assuming the White House doesn't withdraw her nomination, the Senate will have another opportunity to vote on Sohn. Whether lawmakers plan to do so any time soon remains unclear.