Sens John Thune (R-SD) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to request that it conduct an independent review of the Federal Communication Commission’s Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program to ensure its success. The letter also requested that there be a comprehensive review of the program to determine its effectiveness and efficiency. They asked GAO examine the following issues and questions:

Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: When establishing the EBB program, what measures did the FCC take to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse? 

• Given the waste, fraud, and abuse found by GAO in the past in the FCC’s Lifeline program, did the FCC include additional measures to correct those mistakes of past programs when establishing the EBB program?
• Did the FCC’s Office of Economic and Analytics conduct a cost/benefit analysis of the EBB rules?

Administrative Costs: Under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, the FCC was permitted to use not more than 2 percent of the $3.2 billion fund to administer the EBB program. 

• Did the FCC adhere to this mandate?  Is the FCC likely to fully comply with this mandate at the end of the program? 
• Did the FCC comply with all applicable contracting and acquisition requirements?
• Were any contracting or acquisition requirements waived?
• Of the amounts the FCC will expend to administer the program, what specific items will the funds be used for? What is the total for administrative costs? How did FCC staff bill their time when working on the initial rulemaking? 
• Were any of the funds to administer the program provided to the Universal Service Administrative Company? If so, what was the amount of those funds and for what specific purposes were the funds used?

Eligibility Requirements: The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, set specific requirements to determine eligibility for the EBB program.

• Did the FCC adhere to the eligibility mandate?
• In its order, the FCC stated that a “‘substantial loss of income’ includes the loss of a job, including a furlough, that is documented by a layoff or furlough notice, application for unemployment insurance benefits, or similar documentation.”
  • What guidance has the FCC provided regarding what constitutes “similar documentation,” and how was this guidance communicated to providers?
  • What processes has the FCC established for review of “similar documentation?”  How will the FCC review documentation to ensure fraudulent claims are caught? 
  • What processes has the FCC established for general review of the EBB program?
  • What measures has the FCC taken to ensure that distinct program eligibility requirements are maintained in the National Verifier and appropriately enforced?
  • How did the FCC determine individual and joint filers’ income for the year 2020?  Did they work with the other expert agencies in making those determinations?
• What steps did the FCC take to ensure timely termination of subsidies for service to individuals who are no longer able to use a qualifying service, for example due to death or incarceration?
• Did the FCC create a process to ensure that once the subsidies made available under the EBB program are no longer available, individuals who would not otherwise qualify for other programs, like Lifeline, would not continue to receive other subsidies provided by the FCC?
• Should Congress consider amending the eligibility requirements if additional funding to the program is considered?

There is a vast literature that examines the determinants of the gender digital gap in developing countries, and puts forth policy recommendations to mitigate it. However, few studies examine how gender differences in labor force participation and employment patterns affect ICT adoption in general, or Internet use in particular. This matters because employment and the types of jobs that men and women do correlate with different opportunities to access the Internet and develop digital skills, both of which contribute to overall Internet engagement. This study contributes to fill this gap by exploring how gender differences in employment affect the digital gender gap in four Latin American countries. The findings point to differences in employment patterns between men and women as the largest single contributor to the gender gap in Internet use in these countries, ahead of differences in other predictors of Internet use such as income, age and education. Further, our results suggest that the correlation between employment and Internet use is stronger among women than men, which we attribute to the fact that women tend to work in more ICT-intensive sectors (e.g., health services and education). Estimates from a decomposition analysis suggest that if women were employed at the same rate as men the gender digital gap in these countries would be reduced by at least a quarter.

Tennessee officials are moving forward with a plan to map out just where hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans without access to high-speed Internet live, following the lead of other states that no longer rely on federal maps that overstate coverage in some communities. The plan involves collecting and validating service data from broadband providers in Tennessee for about a year, with an anticipated completion of summer 2022, said Crystal Ivey, broadband director for the state Department of Economic and Community Development. The estimated cost for the initial statewide map will be $450,000, though full details of the initiative are still being finalized, Ivey said. The state’s decision follows the advice of the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, or TACIR. The panel said in a report that Tennessee should join several states in seeking more precision and not waiting around for a rewrite of the federal maps, which are based on data supplied by broadband providers. That rewrite is in the works but with no definitive timeline.

Despite clear evidence to the contrary, lobbyists have long claimed that U.S. broadband is extremely competitive and incredibly affordable. As the Biden administration pushes a bold new broadband plan to drive competition in the broadband marketplace, lobbyists are once again trying to pretend there’s no real problem that needs fixing. To be clear, Americans pay some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world, thanks to limited competition and regional monopolization. After decades of industry consolidation, heavy lobbying, and the steady erosion of both competition and government oversight, the results are obvious: high prices, spotty coverage, comparatively slower speeds, and statistically terrible customer service. President Joe Biden’s broadband plan hopes to fix this problem by driving additional competition to market, whether that competition comes from new private sector upstarts, innovative new technologies, or the hard work of local communities. An additional $100 billion in broadband funding also aims to help those stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide. 

[Kevin Taglang is the Executive Editor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society]