For the past several years, the Government Technology editorial team has picked apart State of the State addresses, looking for clues about new initiatives and areas of focus that will touch technology. As of Feb 3, 2020, about two-thirds of governors have delivered these speeches. Increasingly, governors are using their platforms to underscore the importance of making sure all residents, regardless of where they live, have options to get online. Internet access has profound impacts on opportunities in education, jobs, health care and nearly every other facet of modern life. The language used to describe getting connected has been slowly shifting: In 2020, broadband is now viewed as critical infrastructure, governors are prioritizing it as such, and it’s not a partisan issue.

Gov Tate Reeves (R-MS), delivering his first address following his election Nov 2019, identified broadband access as a priority, while many others outlined specific budget requests for broadband: Gov Janet Mills (D-ME) asked for $15 million, Gov Kristi Noem (R-SD) spoke of a recently secured $25 million investment, and Gov Ralph Northam (D-VA) asked lawmakers for $35 million for broadband. “Broadband has become an economic necessity for business, for education, for health care, and for everyday life,” Gov Northam said.

Gov Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) put broadband in the win column for his administration, citing its availability statewide thanks to past investments. But Gov Cuomo’s claim is somewhat controversial, as many states have noted the tendency of Federal Communications Commission broadband coverage maps to overstate the reality of Internet access. Complicating this further is the fact that just because service is available doesn’t mean it’s affordable and that residents are satisfied with their options. Clearly, this is an issue that will continue to require further study and substantial investment nationwide.

The organization managing .org addresses is Public Interest Registry (PIR). It’s one of several so-called top-level registrars managing the internet’s address book on behalf of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Now, PIR could be sold to a for-profit company that’s attracted protesters and the attention of California’s attorney general. Since its creation in 2002, PIR has been part of a nonprofit called The Internet Society. In Nov, the Internet Society announced plans to sell PIR to a newly formed private equity firm called Ethos Capital for $1.1 billion.".Org is the closest thing we have to a public interest setup for domain names on the internet," says University of Miami law professor Michael Froomkin, a frequent ICANN critic. Like many others, he worries that Ethos will put profit ahead of a mission to support nonprofits on the internet.

It's not clear what grounds ICANN could use to block the sale. Milton Mueller, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy who worked on the ICANN group that approved the original contract for PIR to manage the .org top-level domain, says that PIR’s contract with ICANN never specified that the .org domain had to be managed by a nonprofit. But he says that, as a requirement of its approval of the sale, ICANN could potentially put new provisions into the contract that would make PIR more accountable to the nonprofit community.

Seeking to blunt the dominance by China’s Huawei, the White House is working with US technology companies to create advanced software for next-generation 5G telecommunications networks. The plan would build on efforts by some US telecom and technology companies to agree on common engineering standards that would allow 5G software developers to run code atop machines that come from nearly any hardware manufacturer. That would reduce, if not eliminate, reliance on Huawei equipment. Microsoft, Dell, and AT&T are part of the effort, White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow said. “The big-picture concept is to have all of the US 5G architecture and infrastructure done by American firms, principally,” he said.