Rural Americans have made large gains in adopting digital technology over the past decade, but they generally remain less likely than urban or suburban adults to have home broadband or own a smartphone.

• Roughly two-thirds of rural Americans (63%) say they have a broadband internet connection at home, up from about a third (35%) in 2007, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in early 2019. Rural Americans are now 12 percentage points less likely than Americans overall to have home broadband; in 2007, there was a 16-point gap between rural Americans (35%) and all US adults (51%) on this question. As is true for the nation as a whole, mobile technology use among rural adults has also risen rapidly, with the share of those owning smartphones and tablets increasing sharply since 2011. Ownership of desktop or laptop computers, by contrast, has only slightly risen since 2008.
• The gap between rural and urban adults has narrowed for some devices like traditional and tablet computers, but rural adults still remain less likely than suburban adults to own these technologies.
• Rural adults are also less likely than suburban adults to have multiple devices or services that enable them to go online: About three-in-ten adults who live in rural communities (31%) report that they own a desktop or laptop computer, a smartphone, a home broadband connection and a tablet computer. By contrast, 43% of suburban adults own all four of these technologies.
• Rural residents go online less frequently than their urban and suburban counterparts. Roughly three-quarters (76%) of adults who live in rural communities say they use the internet on at least a daily basis, compared with more than eight-in-ten of those in suburban (86%) or urban (83%) areas. Meanwhile, 15% of rural adults say they never go online, compared with less than one-in-ten of those who live in urban communities (9%) and those who live in the suburbs (6%).
• In a separate survey the Center conducted in 2018, adults who live in rural areas were more likely to say that getting access to high-speed internet is a major problem in their local community: 24% say this, compared with 13% of urban adults and 9% of rural adults. In contrast, a majority of adults say that high-speed internet is not a major problem in their local community. Similar rates of concern about access to high-speed internet are shared by rural adults in both lower- and higher-income households, as well as by those with various levels of educational attainment.
• Despite lower levels of technology ownership and use, only 36% of rural adults say the government should provide subsidies to help low-income Americans purchase high-speed home internet service, compared with 50% of urban residents and 43% of suburbanites, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey.

In comments to the Federal Trade Commission on competition and consumer protection in broadband markets, ITIF provided an overview of competition dynamics in broadband and argued for a continued light-touch competition policy that allows providers to freely experiment with new business models and technologies. Such an approach gives room for a dynamic competition to drive new value throughout the system. It’s important that the FTC is empowered to step in if problems become apparent, but proscriptive regulation or government-supported overbuilding would undermine the dynamism of broadband and adjacent markets.

MB Link, which has only been in business for about a year, offers 1-gigabit-per-second service to every residence in Mount Belvieu (TX). It’s run by the City of Mont Belvieu, a municipal broadband system in a state where many assume such an operation is forbidden by law.  But the city’s administrators, who say they could not get existing internet providers to expand service or step up their speeds, went to court in 2017 and got a state district judge to rule that broadband internet is a utility on a par with electricity and water service. So-called “home rule” cities in TX have the power to operate utilities, so the judge’s declaration opened the door. Now, with MB Link up and running to rave reviews from residents, other small towns in TX that struggle with subpar online access are expressing interest in Mont Belvieu’s approach.

The FCC’s proposal to adopt an overall cap on the USF is unfortunate, counter-productive and contrary to congressional intent. Congress directed the FCC to make ‘sufficient’ funding available to meet our nation’s universal service goals, not to prohibit spending that is necessary to reach those goals. We urge the Commission to focus its energies on more pressing issues – such as solving the homework gap, awarding Educational Broadband Service licenses to tribes and educational entities, promoting 5G, making more unlicensed spectrum available, and fixing problems with the E-rate and Rural Health Care programs.

Democratic Reps plan a sweeping review of Facebook, Google and other technology giants to determine if they’ve become so large and powerful that they stifle competition and harm consumers, marking a new, unprecedented antitrust threat for an industry that’s increasingly under siege by Congress, the White House and 2020 presidential candidates. The probe, announced June 3 by House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI), is expected to be far-reaching and comes at a moment when Democrats and Republicans find themselves in rare alignment on the idea that the tech industry has been too unregulated for too long. The sentiment spurred a sharp sell-off in tech stocks to start the week.

Chairman Cicilline said the investigation won’t target one specific tech company, but rather focus on the broad belief that the “Internet is broken,” he said. In doing so, he pointed out problematic practices at tech giants such as Google, which has faced sanctions in Europe for prioritizing its services in search over rivals, and Facebook, which Chairman Cicilline criticized for cloning and acquiring competitors to ensure its continued dominance in social networking. Amazon and Apple also could figure into the committee’s early plans, he said, cautioning the goal is a broader look at the industry. Cicilline said Democrats would hold hearings, seek documents — even by subpoena, if necessary — and depose witnesses that could include the leaders of Silicon Valley’s largest companies, who might also be asked to testify publicly. His office said that tech companies, for all their innovations, had created “escalating crises,” from eroding Americans’ privacy rights to depriving ad revenue from cash-strapped local news outlets.

Sens Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) led a letter to Department of Justice (DOJ) Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim on potential political interference in the T-Mobile and Sprint merger investigations. Recent reports indicate that senior White House officials may be attempting to insert their views into the Antitrust Division’s investigation into the proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint. Joining Sens Klobuchar and Blumenthal on the letter were Sens Tom Udall (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ). In the letter, the senators asked Assistant Attorney General Delrahim about any efforts by President Donald Trump or his associates to influence the Justice Department’s review of the T-Mobile/Sprint transaction and to provide any and all communications between the White House and DOJ related to the merger. 

5G mania has swept the wireless industry, regulators and tech enthusiasts — but the hype may be getting ahead of the market demand for it. When 4G launched, the US wireless market still had plenty of room to grow and revenue margins were relatively high. So the telecommunication industry's promotion of 4G service was more measured and less hyped. Now the wireless market is mature and has little subscriber growth (around 1%), so telecom companies are searching for ways to bring new revenue from current subscribers. That has driven the industry to push flashy marketing campaigns to sell consumers on the benefits of 5G. The hype has played out through: an unclear business case, lack of consumer demand, enormous investment, spotty rollout, a global 5G race, and the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. "The hype is so preposterously misaligned with economic reality that inevitably there’s going to be this disastrous crash in expectations and people are going to call it a failure," said telecom researcher Craig Moffett. "In fact, it’s not a failure other than inappropriate expectations. It will actually be better than 4G, and it will be an impressive next step for the network."