The big four US broadband companies invested less in capital projects in 2018 than they did in 2017, undermining one of the rationales for a controversial decision by the Trump administration to remove net neutrality protections. Earnings reported recently show Verizon, AT&T, Charter Communications and Comcast collectively undertook slightly less capital spending in 2018 than in 2017, the first time there has been a drop in three years. They spent $56.9 billion in 2018, compared with $57.1 billion the previous year and $56.1 billion in 2016. The findings call into question one of the main arguments the industry used in its successful campaign to have the Federal Communications Commission overturn the Obama-era net neutrality regulations — a move that sparked anger among internet companies, activists and Democratic politicians.

We’re saying goodbye to Louisville, one of our Fiber cities. We will be turning off the network on April 15. When we launched Fiber service in Louisville in October 2017, we noted at the time that it was the fastest we’ve ever moved from construction announcement to signing up customers. That’s because we were trialing a lot of things in Louisville, including a different type of construction method — namely, placing fiber in much shallower trenches than we’ve done elsewhere. Innovating means learning, and sometimes, unfortunately, you learn by failing. In Louisville, we’ve encountered challenges that have been disruptive to residents and caused service issues for our customers. We’re not living up to the high standards we set for ourselves, or the standards we’ve demonstrated in other Fiber cities. We would need to essentially rebuild our entire network in Louisville to provide the great service that Google Fiber is known for, and that's just not the right business decision for us.

This report puts forward solutions for the sharp decline in trust in democratic institutions, including the media. The recommendations apply broadly to journalism, technology, and citizenship, and provide a compass for rebuilding trust in the 21^st century. Among the key recommendations:

• All journalists, news and information distributors, including major technology companies, must commit to “radical transparency;” providing users with the information regarding how outlets select stories to cover, what sources they use, how they reach their conclusions, and proactively solicit user input;
• With traditional business and financial models for journalism under siege, major investments in and new approaches to supporting sustainable nonprofit and journalism collaborations are essential, particularly at the local level;
• Technology companies and online services that collect user data should become “information fiduciaries” and responsibly protect user information while proactively addressing disinformation and “filter bubbles”;
• Newsrooms must work to diversify their staff and coverage to reflect the communities they serve; and
• All Americans must possess civic and media literacy, with greater emphasis on the fundamentals of how a democracy functions and the media’s role within it, and national civic service reprioritized.