Rep Scott Tipton (R-CO) introduced a bill May 10, the Reprioritizing Unserved Rural Areas and Locations for Broadband Act (RURAL Broadband Act) which if passed would improve the process for expanding broadband to rural communities. “It’s an outrage that rural communities still don’t have the same access to high-speed internet as urban areas,” said Reo Tipton. “From our children’s ability to do homework, to starting and growing a small business, to online banking, it’s time to bring rural Colorado and rural communities across the country to the 21st Century, and this legislation will do just that.” The RURAL Broadband Act would establish better coordination between the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service program (RUS) and the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service Fund (USF) to prioritize buildout to areas that currently lack broadband.The bill would allow the USDA to support a network in any rural area UNLESS:

• An existing network operated in the area by another broadband provider receives ongoing High Cost USF support; and
• The existing network is at least up to the FCC-specified broadband standard (currently 25/3 Mbps); and
• The existing network is fixed terrestrial (wired or fixed wireless)

The Trump administration’s offensives aimed at frustrating the 5G ambitions of China and mobile-technology giant Huawei might end up impeding America’s wireless ambitions, too. Recent White House actions land as China and the US race to launch the superfast cellular networks, with Huawei and its Chinese customers targeting a nationwide 5G rollout in 2020. A US Commerce Department measure, designed to hinder Huawei from buying critical components, might make it harder for American and European telecom-equipment makers to buy certain supplies as well, Western industry executives said. In addition, the Trump administration’s new 25% tariffs on Chinese goods are already making it more expensive for Western companies with Chinese factories, including Silicon Valley’s Cisco Systems to send products to the US. Together, this pair of actions could make it more expensive for US wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon to buy the cellular-tower hardware, switches, and routers needed for 5G. “The service providers would be buying that stuff,” said K.C. Swanson, global-policy director at the Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group representing telecom-equipment makers that do business in the US. She said higher costs could lead carriers to charge customers more for wireless plans, making 5G less attractive for consumers.

Today's tech giants achieved success and scale by promoting their openness, but the industry's open doors are shutting, one by one. Today's dominant tech platforms are privately owned and governed, and their owners will readily adjust the "openness" dial to suit their needs — booting users perceived to be undesirable, blocking competitors, and locking down key data structures (like Facebook's "social graph") to prevent users from choosing alternatives. Today's cloud-based software model pushes businesses and individuals away from the digital commons and toward closed, privately owned dataspaces. Those who still want to own their own digital real estate find that cybersecurity threats mean they can't realistically protect themselves. Network access in the US and most other countries is controlled by a small number of giant service providers, and the reversal of net neutrality rules means that they have a free hand to promote their own properties and stifle competitors. The escalating trade war between the US and China, which threatens to throttle growth in both countries, is splintering the global network economically, technically, and culturally, placing new barriers to international exchange.

Busting up the nation’s tech giants would be much harder than making a campaign pledge. Corporate breakups are a huge, and rare, undertaking for the government, and a social media company like Facebook presents unique challenges that didn't exist with past antitrust successes like the dismembering of AT&T in the 1980s. Here are some of the obstacles standing in the way of turning this rallying cry into reality:

1. Proving Facebook is a monopoly
2. Deciding what to break up
3. Antitrust cases take time and money
4. The legal bar has gotten higher
5. Limits on the president’s power

Parler, a Twitter-like platform, was initially hatched in 2018 as a tool for digital news outlets to claw revenue back from big social networks like Facebook. But as those platforms purge some of the internet’s most inflammatory supporters of President Donald Trump over posts deemed dangerous or offensive, Parler has carved out a niche among these banned right-wing influencers — like Gavin McInnes, Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos. As conservative distrust of social media giants rises to the top of Washington’s political agenda, Parler has also gained the notice of some bona fide Republican leaders: Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale and Sen Mike Lee (R-UT) both began posting on the site in May. Apparently, the President's team is considering setting him up with an account on the site. 

The New York Times Company is urging a judge to order the Federal Communications Commission to disclose information about network neutrality commenters, despite the agency's objections that doing so could compromise people's privacy. “The FCC’s claims dramatically overstate the potential for harm,” the Times writes in court papers filed May 23 with the US District Court in the Southern District of New York. "The FCC both overstates the intrusion on personal privacy that may result from release of the server log and understates the public interest in release of the information,” the newspaper writes. The Times, which is investigating potential Russian meddling in the 2017 net neutrality proceeding, recently sued the FCC in an effort to uncover information about people who filed comments with the agency. The newspaper is seeking a host of data -- including users' IP addresses and time stamps -- for all public comments regarding net neutrality submitted between April 26, 2017 and June 7, 2017.  The FCC has argued it can't divulge data about commenters' IP addresses without compromising people's privacy.

Kristine Fargotstein has been named VP, policy and advocacy, for USTelecom-The Broadband Association. Fargotstein comes from the Federal Communications Commission, where most recently she had been detailed to the House Communications Subcommittee to work on broadband infrastructure, network neutrality, and spectrum issues. While at the FCC, Fargotstein's posts included acting wireline advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, special counsel in the Office of General Counsel, legal advisor to the Wireline bureau chief, and attorney advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau. She is also an adjunct communications law professor at George Mason University.