We evaluate a program by a private Internet Service Provider intended to encourage low-income households to subscribe to broadband internet service. As part of its approval of the Comcast-NBCU merger in 2011, the Federal Communications Commission mandated a “voluntary commitment” by Comcast to introduce a low-income broadband program that Comcast has branded “Internet Essentials (IE).” We use data from the US Census Current Population Survey (CPS) and the National Broadband Map and a differences-in-differences approach to evaluate the program's effects on subscription rates for eligible households.

We find that between 2011, when the program began, and 2015, broadband adoption by eligible households—those with school-age children who were eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches—had increased by more among households that lived in areas in which Comcast provided broadband internet service than among households that lived in areas served by other cable providers. In our difference-in-differences approach, we estimate that about 66 percent of IE subscribers represent true increases in low-income adoption as a result of the program, with the remaining subscribers being households that switched from a competitor and households that would have subscribed as part of a general upward trend in adoption.

We find that CPS survey respondents in IE eligible households had small and insignificant increases their likelihood of taking online courses or job training in Comcast territory relative to similar households residing in the territories of other cable providers and they showed no difference in the propensity to apply for jobs online. These results provide no evidence to support internet literacy training. We also did not find robust effects of some of the program's other components. In particular, IE makes computers available for $150, but we found no difference in the change in low-income computer ownership across cable territories. As a result, it would be hard to conclude that subsidized computers made a difference in broadband subscription despite the visceral appeal of such programs.

We define Digital Equity Ecosystems as interactions between individuals, populations, communities, and their larger sociotechnical environments that all play a role in shaping the digital inclusion work in local communities to promote more equitable access to technology and social and racial justice. Our research in this area seeks to understand the impact of COVID-19 on individuals and families without household internet access and how digital inclusion coalitions across the nation have responded in turn. The research uses a social ecological approach and participatory action research methods with individuals from communities most impacted by the pandemic. 

The goal of the study is to provide data and evidence to help local, state, and federal policymakers in the US develop more effective digital equity strategies nationwide. Findings from the study will also be useful for key stakeholders working to promote digital equity and racial justice in communities struggling with poverty during COVID-19 and after the pandemic ends.

The US Department of Health and Human Services, through the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, is releasing a new report showing the dramatic utilization trends of telehealth services for primary care delivery in Fee-for-Service (FFS) Medicare in the early days of the coronavirus disease 2019 COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). This brief seeks to address the issue of how and whether the Medicare telehealth flexibilities introduced to address the COVID-19 pandemic may have helped maintain access to primary health care during the PHE. Data reflects visits up to early June in 2020.

The analysis found Medicare primary care visits dropped precipitously from mid-March at the start of the pandemic, at the same telehealth visits increased for primary care. Nearly half of Medicare primary care visits were provided via telehealth in April, compared with less than one percent before the PHE in Feb. However, telehealth use was lower in rural areas. The report concludes there is evidence that Medicare’s new telehealth flexibilities played a critical role in helping to maintain access to primary health care services - when many beneficiaries and providers were concerned with transmission of COVID-19. Future research could examine whether these flexibilities were effective and if telehealth may have improved access to care and health outcomes among underserved beneficiaries.

Lack of access to the internet means lack of access to education – an effect that has been made even more urgent as school has moved online in response to COVID-19. Already districts up and down the state that serve 1.4 million students have announced that they will begin the 2020 school year with students learning from home, and we can be sure that more announcements are coming. Right now in California, nearly 1 in 3 school-aged children lack access to the robust broadband networks they need to effectively engage in remote learning. For Los Angeles Unified School District, where instruction continued online during the pandemic, only one in four students had the resources they needed to take part in online learning before the pandemic started. California’s digital divide is now putting families at risk of losing out on learning, or of jeopardizing their health and safety. 

We must invest in high quality broadband for all Californians. Legislation that would do just that is already moving through the Legislature, though it is just a matter of time before the industry attempts to kill it. Introduced by state Sen. Lena Gonzalez, Senate Bill 1130, “Broadband for California,” would make existing funds for broadband accessible to all communities in the state and ensure that projects built with these funds are future-proof and have more open-access to our communities. These changes will see an increase in broadband while at the same time ensuring that scarce state dollars are invested in high-quality internet networks that will last communities for decades. 

[State Sen. Lena Gonzalez represents the 33rd Senate District. James P. Steyer is CEO and founder of Common Sense Media]

After lawmakers collected hundreds of hours of interviews and obtained more than 1.3 million documents about Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, their chief executives will testify before Congress on July 29 to defend their powerful businesses from the hammer of government. The captains of the New Gilded Age — Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google — will appear together before Congress for the first time to justify their business practices. Members of the House judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee have investigated the internet giants for more than a year on accusations that they stifled rivals and harmed consumers. The hearing is the government’s most aggressive show against tech power since the pursuit to break up Microsoft two decades ago. It is set to be a bizarre spectacle, with four men who run companies worth a total of around $4.85 trillion — and who include two of the world’s richest individuals — primed to argue that their businesses are not really that powerful after all. Perhaps appropriately, their reckoning will be broadcast online.

“It has the feeling of tech’s Big Tobacco moment,” said Gigi Sohn, a former senior adviser at the Federal Communications Commission and a fellow at Georgetown University’s law school, referring to the 1994 congressional appearance of top executives of the seven largest American tobacco companies, who said they did not believe that cigarettes were addictive.

Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO) announced he will introduce the Behavioral Advertising Decisions Are Downgrading Services (BAD ADS) Act, a bill to remove Section 230 immunity from Big Tech companies that display manipulative, behavioral ads or provide data to be used for them. Sen Hawley’s bill would crack down on behavioral advertising’s negative effects, which include invasive data collection and user manipulation through design choices. Sen Hawley said, “Big Tech’s manipulative advertising regime comes with a massive hidden price tag for consumers while providing almost no return to anyone but themselves. From privacy violations to harming children to suppression of speech, the ramifications are very real. These kinds of manipulative ads are not what Congress had in mind when passing Section 230, and now is the time to put a stop to this abuse.”