A recently introduced Senate bill would create a dedicated office for rural-broadband expansion inside the Federal Communications Commission. If enacted, the legislation would order the FCC to create an Office of Rural Broadband. That new agency would coordinate with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service and the Universal Service Administrative Company — an FCC-backed nonprofit that distributes broadband funds to underfunded areas — to maintain information on federal rural broadband programs.

The bill is sponsored by Sens Kevin Cramer (R-ND), John Hoeven (R-SD), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

High school students in rural parts of the US face significant challenges accessing technology that may adversely affect their learning — access that students in more populated parts of the country and policymakers may take for granted, according to surveys of students who took the national ACT test. A new report, “Rural Students: Technology, Coursework and Extracurricular Activities” found that rural students were less likely than non-rural students to claim that their home internet access was “great” (36 percent vs. 46 percent). Similarly, rural students were almost twice as likely as non-rural students to state that their internet access was “unpredictable” (16 percent vs. 9 percent). At school, however, there were no substantive differences in reported internet quality between rural and non-rural students. Given that rural students lack access to rigorous coursework, this lack of technological access may impede their course-taking success and their ability to participate in online courses and other opportunities for personalized learning.

In 2018, Congress set the stage to pass a sweeping consumer data-privacy law in 2019, but prospects for legislation are dimming amid sharpening divides among lawmakers over how far the federal government should go in reining in Big Tech. Silicon Valley and its Republican allies are pushing for a national standard that would override state regulations—including California’s landmark 2018 law, which broadens the definition of personal information and gives consumers the right to prevent their data from being sold. They are running up against fierce resistance from Democrats, especially the party’s ascendant young progressives and its large California delegation. Many of these lawmakers are wary of the expanding influence of companies such as Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon, and don’t want a national law that weakens state measures already in place.

“The fact that—even after many hearings last year on the misuse of personal data—not one consensus bill has been introduced is telling,” said Gigi Sohn of the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology and Policy. “Republicans and Democrats seem to still be far apart on the best way to address this problem.”

For the last 25 years, the official policy of the United States with regard to digital privacy has been to rely on "market mechanisms," primarily policed by the Federal Trade Commission's Section 5 authority to prosecute "unfair and deceptive" practices. Despite 25 years and increasing dissatisfaction, both industry proponents and other stakeholders and decisionmakers continue to insist that market forces will either produce market-based privacy solutions or, in the alternative, consumers do not actually value privacy despite their statements to the contrary. In this blog post, I apply the rationale of George Akerlof's seminal paper "The Market For Lemons" to the existing privacy market. I conclude that, like the used car market analyzed by Akerlof, the structure of the privacy market makes it unreasonable to expect that privacy friendly services to emerge, with the exception of "pay for privacy" services (similar to the way that the market for new cars differs from the market for used cars).

The Federal Communications Commission takes an all-of-the-above approach to public safety, so in addition to meeting our statutory obligations, the Commission is pursuing its own initiatives to strengthen emergency calling. One issue we took on in 2018 was the problem of “misrouted” 911 calls from wireless phones. Another challenge on the horizon is identifying a wireless 911 caller’s vertical location in multistory buildings. The last issue I want to hit on is one that makes me and a lot of other people angry: 911 fee diversion. Each year, the FCC submits a report to Congress on this issue. And each year, we see that a small but significant number of states continue to divert resources that should go to 911 but don’t. In light of the fact that this is the tenth iteration of this report and we still see states diverting funds, it’s clear that transparency alone isn’t enough to shame the offending states into doing the right thing. I’m ready and willing to work with Congress and other stakeholders to make sure that all public safety communications fees strengthen the public safety communications system.

Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O’Rielly announced that he has hired Joel Miller as new chief of staff, press contact, and media advisor in his office. Miller intends to begin work on Feb 25, 2019. He replaces Brooke Ericson, who previously departed for a position in the private sector. Miller is currently employed as Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Director for Rep Brett Guthrie (R-KY) with responsibility for Rep Guthrie’s communications work on the House Commerce Committee.