Broadband already powers much of our modern lives, but COVID-19 has acted as an accelerant, a fuel of sorts that has driven many essential activities online. The most significant way to move the dial for Americans without broadband is by changing policy at the federal, state and local level, not only for more funding but to remove roadblocks so that broadband can reach rural and underserved Americans faster. In short, there’s a critical need for Congress to do three things. First, Congressional action is needed to address the immediate broadband connectivity needs that are having a heightened impact on individuals and communities during the COVID-19 crisis. Funding is needed in the next stimulus bill so that students and teachers have access to remote learning, people have access to their doctors and other telehealth options, and to help people work from home, file and maintain their unemployment benefits, and apply for jobs online. Second, there’s an urgent need to provide funding to the Federal Communications Commission so it can implement recently enacted broadband-mapping legislation. As we’ve said before, we can’t solve a problem we don’t understand. Third, additional action is needed to permanently close the broadband gap. With accurate data on broadband availability, we recommend Congress provides funds based on seven important principles.

[Brad Smith is the President of Microsoft]

Legal battles between cities and states are expected to intensify in the coming months with dust-ups over municipal broadband networks and other issues. After some high-profile disputes with governors over pandemic-related restrictions, some mayors are emboldened in pushing back on state laws prohibiting city-level policies that, they say, will be important to recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. 19 states have legal barriers or bans on municipal-owned broadband networks. This impacts millions of schoolchildren who may still be grappling with remote learning in the fall and at-home workers who are more reliant on an internet connection. More than 500 communities have some sort of publicly owned broadband networks, per the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Some states— like Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina — have eased restrictions on phone and electric cooperatives to facilitate broadband in rural areas where private providers are unlikely to invest.

In Mozilla v FCC, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reviewed the Federal Communications Commission’s 2018 “Restoring Internet Freedom” Order, in which it reclassified broadband internet access service (“BIAS”) as an “information service” and attempted to preempt state laws addressing net neutrality. The court vacated the portion of the Order that claimed authority to preempt state laws, and remanded the Order to the FCC because the FCC had failed to consider the Order’s implications for public safety, pole attachments, and the Lifeline program. To provide adequate notice of its intended actions and to demonstrate its openness to alternative conclusions, the FCC must conduct its procedure anew, including consideration of public comments addressing the Commission’s conclusions with respect to public safety, pole attachments, and Lifeline. Without agency conclusions and the reasoning to support them, the public cannot provide meaningful feedback, and the agency cannot meet its requirements under the APA. After refreshing the record, the FCC must conduct a formal rulemaking in which it provides notice to the public of its conclusions and proposed actions, considers and addresses comments, and explains the reasoning behind its final conclusions.

Public interest commenters, including public safety officials, overwhelmingly agreed with Free Press’s assessment that the Federal Communications Commission’s misguided repeal of Net Neutrality and its authority over broadband internet access service (“BIAS”) harms the Lifeline program, pole attachment regulation, and public safety. These commenters also overwhelmingly agreed that the best remedy for such harms would be for the Commission to once again correctly classify broadband as a Title II service protected by strong open internet rules. While a few commenters proposed alternative legal theories, none of these suggestions are likely to withstand judicial scrutiny or serve the FCC’s statutory mandates. Many industry commenters proposed that the FCC rely on alternative authority over some broadband services through commingled voice and broadband facilities, but this is as short-sighted as it is disingenuous.

Commenters opposed to restoring Title II authority largely fall into two camps: (1) Broadband industry lobbyists who ignore the court’s decision in Mozilla v. FCC by insisting that the FCC has already sufficiently addressed the remand and reiterating the same arguments that already failed the FCC in court, and (2) ideological pro-deregulation groups that by and large fail to address the specific remand areas, and instead proclaim their perpetual and hardly germane distaste for Net Neutrality and Title II. Both camps rely heavily on baseless claims that the Restoring Internet Freedom Order has somehow spurred broadband investment, which they argue must outweigh any other considerations. But these investment claims are spurious and devoid of evidentiary support

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert launched Connecting Heroes, the Un-carrier’s 10-year commitment to provide free service and 5G access to first responder agencies — all public and non-profit state and local fire, police and EMS departments — saving them up to $7 billion. Plus, the Un-carrier continues to build out its industry-leading 5G network at a furious pace. T-Mobile’s 5G network is now 8 times bigger than AT&T’s and 28 THOUSAND times bigger than Verizon’s.

In the wake of the pandemic, T-Mobile also is making an offer to help anyone who wants to upgrade or add personal and family smartphones. Beginning this Memorial Day weekend, you can get a free iPhone SE (with bill credits) or get $500 off a Samsung Galaxy S20 smartphone. 

The Association of National Advertisers says that the new browser obligations in the proposed implementing regulations of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are "a regulatory hammer blow against the anvil of the pandemic-driven pullback in the broader ad market." That came in a letter to Rep Adam Schiff (D-CA) in response to a letter from the congressman on a related subject, keyword filtering. In its response, ANA said that the ad industry "has moved quickly and aggressively to ensure that ad-supported news media is not adversely impacted by overly broad keyword filtering of content related to the novel coronavirus," and that the CCPA browser issue was a graver threat to journalism's finances. They urged Rep Schiff to contact the California Attorney General's office about the issue ASAP to prevent "codification of these dangerous gatekeeper standards."