“Middle-skill” jobs make up a large portion of the market, has positions to fill, but suffers from a dearth of trained workers—especially when it comes to digital skills. Digital skills refer to a person’s ability to use digital tools, applications, and networks to access and manage information. Pandemic-driven unemployment will only put the middle-skill issue into sharper relief. Three things stand out when looking at middle-skill jobs:

1. There is high demand for jobs with digital skills.
2. Too many of those who could fill middle-skill jobs lack the digital skills needed for them.
3. The traditional job-training system is, for the most part, not suited to bridge these gaps.

There are models that can serve as a guidepost to stakeholders trying to address labor market needs. A point of departure here will be the role of digital skills in emerging models. Many middle-skill jobs require digital skills, but more can be done to integrate broadband into job training.

Let’s face it: A 25 Mbps download speed isn’t enough internet these days. It wasn’t necessarily enough before the current pandemic, but with many families now working and going to school from home, those with the minimum broadband speed have probably discovered there isn’t enough bandwidth to go around. Which is why it’s time for the Federal Communications Commission to change its already weak definition of minimum broadband, a measly 25 Mbps download, 3 Mbps upload, to something that accurately reflects the internet needs of households today.

It may take a while to get ISPs on board with providing equitable access across the entire nation, but at least the FCC can get with the times and accurately reflect appropriate internet download/upload speeds for the average US household.

Fast internet is finally set to arrive in several of the most rural parts of Mississippi. The Mississippi Public Utilities Staff awarded $66 million in grants for areas that have few or no high-speed internet options. The bulk of the federal grant money went to rural electric cooperatives, which now will also serve as the primary internet providers in their regions. Rural Mississippians can thank the coronavirus pandemic for the sudden infusion of federal CARES Act funds that should — by the end of this year — create thousands more high-speed internet connections. Mississippi has long suffered from among the most limited coverage and slowest internet speeds of any state in the country. In 2021 — using matching funds they were required to commit in order to obtain the federal cash — the cooperatives and several other groups plan to lay another 1,980 miles of fiber. The fiber lines will be hung on poles, and recipients of the grants expect they can lay about 20 miles a week through the end of the year. Those new fiber lines will go past more than 40,000 homes and businesses, many of which will potentially be able to tap into high-speed internet for the first time.

The Federal Communications Commission extended the Rural Tribal Priority Window for 2.5 GHz spectrum applications by 30 days in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This window opened on Feb 3, 2020, and to date, over 200 Tribal entities have submitted applications. As a result of July 31’s action, other eligible Tribal entities can continue to apply for licenses for currently unassigned 2.5 GHz spectrum over their rural Tribal lands until 6:00 pm EDT on Sept 2, 2020. This 30-day extension strikes an appropriate balance between providing more time for additional Tribal entities to apply and not unduly delaying the grant of licenses to those that have already applied so that they can quickly put this spectrum to use for rural Americans on Tribal lands who are too often on the wrong side of the digital divide

In 2019, Network Communications International Corporation petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to forbear from its obligation to contribute to the Universal Service Fund (USF) with respect to inmate calling services it provides in jails and prisons. More recently, another inmate calling services provider, Securus Technologies, LLC (Securus), sought a waiver from contributions obligations for all inmate calling services providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the critical role that the USF plays in bringing connectivity to rural and low-income Americans, schools, libraries, and health care providers, and the statutory directive to collect equitable and non-discriminatory contributions from all providers of interstate telecommunications services, the FCC now denies both NCIC’s and Securus’ petitions.

It was the “Wizard of Oz” in digital format as the four titans of Big Tech testified via video before the House Antitrust Subcommittee. Just like in the movie, what the subcommittee saw was controlled by a force hidden from view. The wizard in this case—the reason these four companies are so powerful—is the math that takes our private information and turns it into their corporate asset. It is the 21st century equivalent of Rockefeller’s 20th century monopoly over oil. Unlike industrial assets such as oil, data is reusable. Data is also iterative, as its use in a product creates new data. Additionally, data is non-rivalrous, in that its use by one party does not preclude its use by another.

The internet platform barons assembled at the hearing are, as a result of the nature of the asset they monopolize, infinitely more powerful that Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan or the industrial barons of the early 20th century. It is all about the math that is hiding behind the curtain. It is time for the federal government to pull back the curtain and investigate the abusive hoarding of the consumer’s personal information and its effect on a competitive market.

Millions of American students won't be heading back to the classroom this fall, at least not full time. From Los Angeles to New York, remote learning will continue into the fall. That leaves a staggering number of students at risk of falling behind or dropping out. Up to 30% of schoolchildren — as many as 16 million American kids — lack internet access or laptops for online learning. The digital divide has been with us for decades, and we're not going to solve it by August. But there is a tremendous amount we can do, right now, to save a generation of students from years of struggle. In the next round of coronavirus relief legislation, Congress should fund wireless "hotspot" distribution by public schools and libraries. Lawmakers should also offer subsidies or vouchers for commercial internet service and require providers to honor them. The same approach can work for laptops. We urge Congress to provide up to $6 billion for students and $1 billion for educators in the next round of coronavirus relief for broadband service and hardware, targeted to households that already qualify for other forms of federal assistance. We can immediately bring gigabit internet to millions of students, for free, by tapping the high-speed connections in public buildings across the United States.

[Stefanie Sanford is chief of global public policy and external relations for the College Board, and Larry Irving is a former US assistant secretary of commerce during the Clinton Administration]

The Trump administration is withholding $20 million in funding approved by Congress for a US Internet freedom organization, forcing the cutoff of tools used by tens of millions of people worldwide to access the Internet and uncensored news through the Voice of America, officials said. Laura Cunningham, the head of the Washington-based Open Technology Fund, said that it is being forced to halt 49 of the fund’s 60 Internet freedom projects. The move, according to the head of the fund, affects about 80 percent of the group’s work helping human rights and pro-democracy advocates, journalists, and others in 200 countries. Cunningham said the ongoing “arbitrary and unnecessary” withholding of grants earmarked by Congress has compromised the fund’s work countering digital surveillance, supporting technologies used by 2 billion people a day. She also said it “jeopardized the lives of millions of users who rely on our technologies worldwide,” including the agency’s own journalists and its audience overseas.

Both presidential campaigns are facing calls to commit to keeping industry faces and corporate conflicts of interest out of the White House — as speculation swirls about who from the tech world could wind up in the winning administration. Nearly 50 groups -- including Revolving Door Project, Fight for the Future and the Open Markets Institute -- wrote to the candidates pressuring them “to commit not to appoint any individual to a senior policy role in an agency or department with authority over any industry in which that individual held a senior position or served in an advisory capacity within the last five years.”  “Throughout the last four years, the public has been subjected to a never-ending parade of conflicted appointees. … While corporate interests benefit from this regime, the American public suffers,” the organizations wrote. “The next president must treat this trust deficit like the crisis it is. This moment calls for bold commitments to build an administration that is devoid of serious conflicts of interest.”