Daily Digest 4/9/2020 (How’s the Internet Doing?)

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
Table of Contents

Internet/Broadband

Internet Speed Analysis: Rural, Top 200 Cities March 29th – April 4th  |  Read below  |  Tyler Cooper  |  BroadbandNow
INCOMPAS: Fiber Sees Big Bump in Traffic, Launches Network Performance Website  |  Incompas
How’s the Internet Doing? Depends Where You Look  |  Read below  |  Tara Lachapelle  |  Bloomberg
Why the coronavirus lockdown is making the internet stronger than ever  |  Read below  |  Will Douglas Heaven  |  Technology Review
Broadband is More Important Than Ever  |  Read below  |  NTIA Administrator Doug Kinkoph  |  Press Release  |  Department of Commerce
Editorial: Reliable internet never more critical than now  |  Duluth News Tribune
Phone, internet providers extend service yet some still disconnected from lifelines during coronavirus pandemic  |  Read below  |  Rachel Dissell, Jordyn Grzelewski  |  Cleveland Plain Dealer
Getting Residents Online in a Pandemic Crisis  |  Read below  |  Angelina Panettieri  |  Analysis  |  National League of Cities
Trust and entrepreneurship pave the way toward digital inclusion in Brownsville, Texas  |  Read below  |  Lara Fishbane, Adie Tomer  |  Brookings Institution
Rural North Dakotans Get Free, High-Speed Internet Access Thanks to Electric Cooperative Responding to Covid-19 Emergency  |  Read below  |  Katie Kienbaum  |  Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Wireless

T-Mobile doubled capacity, speeds in days with spectrum loaned from Dish, others  |  Read below  |  Bevin Fletcher  |  
Report: T-Mobile Average 4G Speeds More Than Double, Thanks to Spectrum Loan  |  telecompetitor
Report: Work-Day Home Wi-Fi Usage Doubles with COVID-19 but Hits Plateau  |  telecompetitor
Sprint affiliate Shentel starts negotiation clock with new T-Mobile  |  Read below  |  Monica Alleven  |  Fierce
Samsung is bringing 5G to its midrange phones later in 2020  |  Vox

Telecom

The Humble Phone Call Has Made a Comeback  |  Read below  |  Cecilia Kang  |  New York Times
Senators Urge Administration to Use New Authority to Allow Free Telephone Calls and Video Conferencing for Incarcerated People  |  US Senate

Education

New America Urges FCC to Authorize $2.2 Billion in Available E-Rate Funds to Connect Students Left Behind During COVID-19 Pandemic  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  New America
Campaign aims to get students connected  |  Read below  |  Kyle Daly  |  Axios
The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning  |  EDUCAUSE
Berkeley: Leaving No Child Digitally Behind  |  Read below  |  Keith Nickolaus  |  Letter  |  Wall Street Journal
4 In 10 U.S. Teens Say They Haven't Done Online Learning Since Schools Closed  |  National Public Radio

Health

Indian Health Service Expands Telehealth Services During COVID-19 Response  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  Department of Health & Human Services
FCC Issues Guidance on the COVID-19 Telehealth Program Application Process  |  Federal Communications Commission
6 things to know about telehealth  |  Vox
Location tracking to combat COVID-19 may not be accurate enough to be effective, says ACLU  |  Fast Company

Security

US Allows Google Internet Project to Advance Only if Hong Kong Is Cut Out  |  Read below  |  Drew FitzGerald, Kate O'Keeffe  |  Wall Street Journal
Senator Markey Statement on Reported White House National Coronavirus Surveillance System (Sen Ed Markey  |  Sen Ed Markey (D-MA)

Emergency Communications

Improving connectivity in Rural Oregon  |  First Responder Network Authority

Journalism

20 Senators Push to Support Local Journalism Amid Coronavirus Pandemic  |  Read below  |  Sen Angus King (I-ME)  |  Letter  |  US Senate
Groups Call on Congress to Fund Journalism and Treat Local News as Essential Service during Pandemic  |  Read below  |  Suzanne Nossel, Craig Aaron, Michael Copps  |  Letter  |  Free Press
As newsrooms face coronavirus-related cuts, 54% of Americans rate media’s response to the outbreak positively  |  Pew Research Center
Jack Shafer: President Trump Anoints a New Class of Media Stars  |  Politico

Content/Platforms

Coronavirus Misinformation: Nearly three-in-ten Americans believe COVID-19 was made in a lab  |  Pew Research Center

Television

Parents Television Council Calls for Return of TV's Family Viewing Hour  |  Broadcasting&Cable
Comcast Offers Free Access to Multicultural-Themed Services  |  Multichannel News

Privacy

Senator Markey Requests Comprehensive Online Conferencing Service Guidance as Number of Virtual Meetings Skyrockets Due to Coron (Sen Ed Markey  |  Sen Ed Markey (D-MA)
The Privacy Lesson We Are Learning From Zoom: the simplest path might not be the right path  |  New York Times
Zoom Rushes to Improve Privacy for Consumers Flooding Its Service  |  New York Times

Advertising

Digital-Media Upstarts Rush to Cut Costs as Coronavirus Wipes Out Advertising  |  Wall Street Journal

Policymakers

FCC Solicits Nominations For The Communications Security, Reliability, And Interoperability Council VII And Its Working Groups  |  Federal Communications Commission
Announcement of Solicitation of Members for the WRC Advisory Committee  |  Federal Communications Commission
Opinion: Everyone is learning how to work remotely. Lawmakers should, too.  |  Washington Post

Life As We Know It Now

iPhone Can’t Recognize You With a Mask On? Here’s What to Do About It  |  Wall Street Journal
Employers Face Shortages of Tech Gear as Coronavirus Forces Shipment Delays  |  Wall Street Journal
Today's Top Stories

Internet/Broadband

Internet Speed Analysis: Rural, Top 200 Cities March 29th – April 4th

Tyler Cooper  |  BroadbandNow

For the past three weeks, our team has been tracking internet performance in hundreds of American cities amid the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, we expanded our analysis to include rural America, as well as adding in data on upload speeds, which have been central to the discussion around working (and learning) from home. Key findings:

  • Internet performance in the US improved overall, with 97 cities (48.5%) recording download speed degradations this week (down from 117, or 59% last week). 139 cities (69%) have reported upload speed disruptions, which is also down from last week’s 144, or 72%.
  • Combined rural download speeds are rallying, climbing to a median of 16.2 Mbps compared to last week’s 15.5 Mbps. Upload speeds in rural areas have remained consistent from the week of 3/22, albiet slightly down from previous weeks.
  • Three cities are experiencing upload speed drops of greater than 40% out of range, including Baltimore (MD), Los Angeles (CA), and Flushing (NY). 
  • Four cities are still experiencing significant download speed drops: Lawrenceville (GA), Rochester (NY), Saint Paul (MN), and new addition Evansville (IN).

How’s the Internet Doing? Depends Where You Look

Tara Lachapelle  |  Bloomberg

As residents shelter in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the surge in demand that internet providers would expect to see gradually over the course of an entire year has instead hit in a matter of weeks. How are these crucial networks faring, and will they be able to keep handling this kind of a load? The answer is complicated and even more so the longer the pandemic persists. But so far — as anyone fortunate enough to be able to work remotely and stream Netflix can attest — things seem to be going OK. “These networks are holding up pretty well to the onslaught of traffic demand that they’ve been subject to,” said Steve Alexander, chief technology officer at Ciena Corp. Still, there’s no one official source for tracking the state of America’s digital connectivity. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai released a statement recently summarizing the upbeat feedback he’s received from internet providers. “It appears,” he said, that networks are performing fine, relying on the data disclosed by those companies. 

But different methodologies make it difficult to get a good read. Part of the problem is that nationwide averages aren’t practical when internet infrastructure and reliability can vary immensely from one state or county to the next. Another issue is that connections tend to be measured in terms of download speeds, while upload speeds are much slower and are needed for things like video calls. That’s why it’s important to look at latency, the amount of time it takes a signal to travel, which can explain annoying buffering on streaming apps and lags in a FaceTime connection.

The unprecedented demand “is putting real stress on our networks, and with so much of modern life now dependent on these connections it is fair to ask how providers are managing this new demand,” said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel . “Getting a few reports using different methods from a handful of companies is useful, but it’s not enough.” Commissioner Rosenworcel has called for the FCC to issue daily updates on network status, just as it would during a hurricane or mass power outage, events that activate its Disaster Information Reporting System.

Why the coronavirus lockdown is making the internet stronger than ever

Will Douglas Heaven  |  Technology Review

In addition to the increase in traffic, sheltering in place strains the internet in two more ways. First, last-mile connections—the ones that run from local exchanges or data centers to your home—are typically the weakest links in a network. Many run over outdated cables. When broadband was rolled out in the US, for example, it often piggybacked on cables originally installed for TV. These cables were designed to pipe data into a home and not out of it, which is why uploading video from a home internet connection can be flaky. Home connections also tend to have lower bandwidth than those in an office or school, making familiar activities feel slower. And the narrower pipes at the internet’s fringes get congested when everybody in a neighborhood wants to use the internet at the same time. A second issue is that internet companies are now having to handle traffic from multiple locations instead of a handful of hubs.

Telecom companies like Comcast, content makers like Netflix, retail giants like Amazon, virtual storage providers like Dropbox—plus a host of other data centers and cloud services—have piped in new connections, shored up old ones, and wired up millions of superfast servers. The investment has massively increased capacity, speed, and performance across the board. “The industrialization of the internet has created a powerful mesh of networks that is, for the most part, working beautifully,” says Tesh Durvasula, CEO of CyrusOne, one of several international companies that help keep the internet running by installing and managing the vast clusters of computers that make up the cloud.

Broadband is More Important Than Ever

NTIA Administrator Doug Kinkoph  |  Press Release  |  Department of Commerce

Broadband is more important than ever, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has been working to expand access and increase connectivity for all Americans. We recently provided a one-year update to the American Broadband Initiative (ABI), the Trump Administration’s government-wide approach to connectivity challenges. Five new states – Nebraska, New Mexico, Michigan, Missouri, and Virginia – have joined the initial eight states participating in our National Broadband Availability Map. We have seen increased participation in our State Broadband Leader’s Network, and our BroadbandUSA website now has the most comprehensive information on state resources available. At NTIA, we have also worked with the Federal Communications Commission, businesses, and federal stakeholders to make sure our response to connectivity needs remains flexible. Most recently, NTIA supported Verizon’s application to the FCC for a Special Temporary Authority to access radio frequency spectrum due to increased commercial use.

Phone, internet providers extend service yet some still disconnected from lifelines during coronavirus pandemic

Rachel Dissell, Jordyn Grzelewski  |  Cleveland Plain Dealer

At a time when all Ohioans are being asked to stay at home to help flatten the curve of COVID-19 cases, phones, cellphones and internet connections are often a lifeline, connecting people to doctors, social services, unemployment, news, religious services, loved ones, and school lessons. Unlike electricity and water, however, phones and internet service haven’t been deemed “essential” by the government, and since they aren’t regulated like other public utilities, it is unclear how that would happen. The Federal Communications Commission on March 13 asked broadband and telephone service providers to pledge they would not disconnect service for customers for 60 days, and the FCC says 650 companies and trade associations made that promise. But still, some phone and internet connections are being cut, particularly in cases where bills already were overdue. Social services agencies say that case managers, lawyers and other outreach workers trying to reach clients have had trouble doing so because of disconnections. It is difficult to know how widespread the issue may be or to discern the reasons that some people have had service cut and others have not.

Getting Residents Online in a Pandemic Crisis

Angelina Panettieri  |  Analysis  |  National League of Cities

What are steps local leaders can take right now to help low-income and vulnerable families access broadband connections and devices to get online during the crisis? 

  • Help Your Residents Access Free and Low-Cost Broadband Plans
  • Help Residents Access Free Devices
  • Leverage Public Wi-Fi Options
  • Partner with the Private Sector
  • Connect with Your State Leadership

[Angelina Panettieri is the Legislative Manager for Information Technology and Communications at the National League of Cities]

Trust and entrepreneurship pave the way toward digital inclusion in Brownsville, Texas

Lara Fishbane, Adie Tomer  |  Brookings Institution

As part of a larger project around digital equity, we visited Texas’s Brownsville-Harlingen metropolitan area, a community with low rates of broadband adoption and spotty service. We can look to this community to better understand the opportunities for overcoming barriers to broadband adoption. Leaders in the region—including the city manager, the head of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, and representatives from local health and housing centers—all know that to improve economic conditions, they need to increase broadband penetration, adoption, and use. To get there, they are capitalizing on the region’s already-strong network of trusted community members as well as the entrepreneurial spirit deeply interwoven within the region’s workforce.

The health care sector in this region offers a unique solution to tackle digital skills challenges: promotoras, who are community health workers from local Latino or Hispanic communities. Though this isn’t a traditional component of promotoras’ work, it is in the social and financial interests of health departments to have digitally literate patients. While many promotoras have advanced digital skills, others still need training and support from their employers. Reorienting health systems toward digital inclusion can have lasting health and equity impacts throughout the region.

Rural North Dakotans Get Free, High-Speed Internet Access Thanks to Electric Cooperative Responding to Covid-19 Emergency

Katie Kienbaum  |  Institute for Local Self-Reliance

North Dakota telephone cooperative BEK Communications is offering new subscribers four months of free Internet access on its Lightband Fiber-to-the-Home network. The co-op is also increasing speeds and implementing other efforts through its “BEK Cares” initiative, which aims to make better broadband accessible to rural North Dakotans in response to the growing Covid-19 emergency. Valley City Commission President Dave Carlsrud said, "We have been utilizing BEK’s business services for years, however with the current COVID-19 pandemic, we quickly found out how important they truly were. We are very appreciative of BEK’s commitment in helping the City of Valley City to continue providing necessary services to its residents."

Wireless

T-Mobile doubled capacity, speeds in days with spectrum loaned from Dish, others

Bevin Fletcher  |  

T-Mobile deployed additional 600 MHz spectrum in two days after getting it on loan from Dish Network and others amid the COVID-19 crisis, according to analysis by Opensignal. This doubled capacity and 4G LTE speeds in major markets, showing a successful example of collaboration within and between the wireless industry and government during the pandemic. In 32 markets, T-Mobile boosted the amount of 600 MHz spectrum for 4G twice - increasing first from 10 MHz to 20 MHz, and then again to 30 MHz. The capacity boost made an impact on T-Mobile’s performance right out of the gate; average 4G LTE download speeds increased significantly from day one for users on T-Mobile’s network in those markets. When connected to the 600 MHz band, average download speeds rose from 9.9 Mbps at the beginning of March to 20.2 Mbps by the end of the month.

Sprint affiliate Shentel starts negotiation clock with new T-Mobile

Monica Alleven  |  Fierce

The closure of the T-Mobile merger with Sprint kicked off a round of questions about how the new entity will work, including for Sprint affiliate Shenandoah Telecommunications (Shentel), which offers services under the Sprint brand. Shentel received a Conversion Notice from T-Mobile pursuant to the terms of its affiliate agreement with Sprint which sets forth a cascade of deadlines and potential outcomes. First, there’s a 90-day period for the companies to negotiate mutually agreeable terms and conditions for Shentel to continue as an affiliate of the new T-Mobile. If no agreement is reached, then T-Mobile has 60 days to exercise an option to buy the wireless operations of Shentel. If T-Mobile doesn’t exercise its option, Shentel has 60 days to buy the legacy T-Mobile network and subscribers in its service area. Finally, if Shentel doesn’t exercise its purchase option, T-Mobile must sell or decommission its legacy network and customers in Shentel’s service area.

Telecom

The Humble Phone Call Has Made a Comeback

Cecilia Kang  |  New York Times

Phone calls have made a comeback in the pandemic. While the nation’s biggest telecommunications providers prepared for a huge shift toward more internet use from home, what they didn’t expect was an even greater surge in plain old voice calls, a medium that had been going out of fashion for years. Verizon said it was now handling an average of 800 million wireless calls a day during the week, more than double the number made on Mother’s Day, historically one of the busiest call days of the year. Verizon added that the length of voice calls was up 33 percent from an average day before the outbreak. AT&T said that the number of cellular calls had risen 35 percent and that Wi-Fi-based calls had nearly doubled from averages in normal times. In contrast, internet traffic is up around 20 percent to 25 percent from typical daily patterns, AT&T and Verizon said.

Education

New America Urges FCC to Authorize $2.2 Billion in Available E-Rate Funds to Connect Students Left Behind During COVID-19 Pandemic

Press Release  |  New America

New America’s Open Technology Institute called on the Federal Communications Commission to use its existing authority and universal service budget to extend connectivity to students without broadband access to help facilitate remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the emergency request filing, OTI urges the FCC to act to empower schools and libraries to close the homework gap using the Universal Service Fund (USF) and E-Rate and Lifeline programs. 

In the filing, OTI explains why the FCC has the legal authority and $2.2 billion in E-Rate funds it needs to immediately extend broadband access to millions of K-12 students who lack broadband internet service. Last week the FCC added $100 million in universal service funding for a telehealth pilot that extends internet access to patients at home, demonstrating it has the authority to do the same for students.The filing also urges the FCC to waive restrictions on the use of school or library broadband networks supported by E-Rate to extend connectivity to students off-campus for educational purposes. Further, the FCC can leverage the Lifeline program to help not just students, but all low-income Americans who need connectivity while they are required to stay at home during this crisis.

Campaign aims to get students connected

Kyle Daly  |  Axios

Common Sense Media is urging Congress to use the next round of coronavirus relief legislation to make sure all US students can connect to the internet. The campaign, dubbed "Connect All Students," comes as a poll from the group and SurveyMonkey finds that teens are worried they'll fall behind in school due to the pandemic. More than half of students whose in-person classes have been canceled worried about not being able to keep up with schoolwork and extracurricular activities. Black and Hispanic teens were significantly more likely than white teens to report concern, and girls were more likely than boys to do so. The survey also found that 65% of teens reported texting or talking on social media with friends or family more than usual during the pandemic. Texting, phone calls, social media and video chats were the top ways students reported staying connected.

Berkeley: Leaving No Child Digitally Behind

Keith Nickolaus  |  Letter  |  Wall Street Journal

Regarding Steven Davidoff Solomon’s “Berkeley Schools Leave Every Child Behind” (op-ed, April 3), Solomon should know that under federal law public schools (unlike his first daughter’s private school) cannot just plow ahead with a structure that excludes free access to any student, whatever the special need and without threat of serious legal challenges with financial consequences to the district and the district taxpayers. What was really needed, at least in this district, would have been a short-term waiver of the actual federal statutes regarding free and public access for all students. That would be more apropos but perhaps, also ironically, the wrong approach. Because of those statutes Berkeley United School District went “online” a little later than the small private school, but it did so only after ensuring all of those connectivity-challenged households would also get connected. That’s the good side of the federal laws, but one cannot avoid the challenges of the complexity they pose. From my perspective as a parent, the district-level leadership and site-level educators may not have moved as fast as the private school next door, but made the transition aggressively without neglecting to take the right amount of time to engage all of its stakeholders (including parents and teacher unions) and address critical equity issues to proceed responsibly and effectively for a sustainable and legally prudent outcome.

Health

Indian Health Service Expands Telehealth Services During COVID-19 Response

The Indian Health Service is announcing its expansion of telehealth across IHS federal facilities. On March 27, IHS issued additional guidance that allowed clinicians to use certain additional, non-public facing audio or video communications technologies to augment all clinical activities related to providing care to patients during the COVID-19 public health emergency. This applied to telehealth provided for any clinical reason, regardless of whether the telehealth service is related to the diagnosis and treatment of health conditions related to COVID-19. Beginning April 8, IHS service units and their clinicians who are using the system will obtain verbal consent from patients who meet with their provider via a telehealth appointment.  Health care providers are required to verify the patient at the beginning of each encounter and are not authorized to record the session.

Security

US Allows Google Internet Project to Advance Only if Hong Kong Is Cut Out

Drew FitzGerald, Kate O'Keeffe  |  Wall Street Journal

US officials granted Google permission to turn on a high-speed internet link to Taiwan but not to the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, citing national-security concerns in a ruling that underscores fraying ties between Washington and Beijing. “There is a significant risk that the grant of a direct cable connection between the United States and Hong Kong would seriously jeopardize the national-security and law-enforcement interests of the United States,” the US Department of Justice said in its decision, which was backed by the departments of Homeland Security and Defense. The agencies instead urged the Federal Communications Commission to grant Alphabet permission to start using the portion of its 8,000-mile underwater Pacific Light cable that connects California to Taiwan. The FCC approved that request April 8. Crews have already built the multimillion-dollar cable with branches to Taiwan and Hong Kong, but it remains dormant. The FCC has final authority over licenses to operate submarine cables, though it usually defers to other agencies on projects’ national-security reviews.

Journalism

20 Senators Push to Support Local Journalism Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Sen Angus King (I-ME)  |  Letter  |  US Senate

In a letter to Senate leadership and appropriators, 20 senators stress that the widespread impact of the pandemic – including plummeting advertising revenue – could decimate regional and local news outlets even as communities have become increasingly reliant on their reporting amidst the public health crisis. Already some newspapers have reduced or eliminated print editions, while other news outlets have furloughed staff. During this unprecedented public health crisis, people need to have access to their trusted local news outlets for this reliable and sometimes life-saving information.

Groups Call on Congress to Fund Journalism and Treat Local News as Essential Service during Pandemic

Suzanne Nossel, Craig Aaron, Michael Copps  |  Letter  |  Free Press

A coalition of more than 45 organizations and scholars has called on Congress to include vital funding for local news in the next coronavirus stimulus package. Free Press Action, PEN America, Common Cause,  and other organizations urged the House and Senate leadership to consider local press an “essential service” vital to the nation’s health, prosperity, and recovery. The organizations ask Congress to allocate at least $5 billion to support local journalism in the next stimulus package. Specifically, they ask for support of public and community media in addition to creating an emergency fund to preserve newsrooms and reporting jobs. They also call for public investment to address the civic-information needs of those most impacted by the spread of news deserts across both rural and urban communities.

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Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.


© Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 2020. Redistribution of this email publication — both internally and externally — is encouraged if it includes this message. For subscribe/unsubscribe info email: headlines AT benton DOT org


Kevin Taglang

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Benton Institute
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