Brookings Institution
Where’s the fire? With unclear legal authority, Trump FCC rushes to hand responsibility over internet service to FTC
[Commentary] The Trump Federal Communications Commission has determined, amazingly but not surprisingly, to rush through its transfer of authority over internet service providers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—even before knowing if that agency possesses the authority to handle such matters.
Big technology firms challenge traditional assumptions about antitrust enforcement
While fear that big tech can wield excessive influence in our democracy may reflect broader misgivings outside the realm of antitrust law and enforcement, some political concerns about big tech appropriately fall under the purview of antitrust regulation. As Sally Hubbard, a Senior Editor at the Capitol Forum who covers monopolization issues, recently stated in an interview with Vox’s Sean Illing, “Companies like Facebook and Google have had an outsize effect on political discourse because of the ways their algorithms help to promote and spread fake news and propaganda.
How tax reform can support rural broadband
[Commentary] As the House GOP released the first draft of the tax plan the week of Oct 30, rural broadband deployment, an issue that continues to receive bipartisan congressional attention, may find some helpful incentives. For telecommunications companies that are highly capital-intensive, the draft that the Senate eventually adopts could impact investments in new rural broadband facilities or the upkeep of existing network infrastructure in rural and urban areas.
Cisco Predicts the US Maintains Lead in Mobile Broadband Usage
In 2014, the number of cellphones is expected to exceed the worldwide population. The usage of mobile devices has increased rapidly over the past several years.
Recently Cisco released their updated Visual Networking Index (VNI) survey, which includes data on the volume of mobile traffic. The Cisco VNI survey uses analyst projections, Cisco forecasts, and direct data collection. This forecast predicts that an even larger number of mobile phone subscribers will use more data than in previous years. Global usage is expected to increase exponentially.
Cisco predicts that worldwide monthly usage will reach 15.9 exabytes per month by 2018. 2013’s forecast predicted 1.6 exabytes per month missing by only 0.1 exabytes. They predict a future Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 61 percent. The estimated CAGR from the previous year was 66 percent. Despite this slow down increased numbers of subscriptions, usage of 4G devices, and higher numbers of people using bandwidth intensive applications like streaming video will drive up the volume of mobile data.
The United States held its position as the leader in mobile traffic and is projected to remain in that position until at least 2018. Currently the United States accounts for 24 percent of global mobile traffic. By 2018 that number is expected to decline to 17 percent. In 2018, the United States, China, India, Japan, and Korea are estimated to use the largest volumes of mobile data. By 2018 those five countries are predicted to use about half of all mobile traffic. The United States ranks near the bottom of the 25 countries for which data is available with a CAGR of 0.5.
Opportunities and Challenges in mHealth: China and the United States
Healthcare costs continue to rise in both China and the United States as procedures become more expensive and longer life expectancies leave a large portion of the population dependent on government healthcare.
At the same time, cellphone use and penetration are also growing in both countries; China and the US rank among the countries with the highest number of mobile phones per capita. With the proliferation of mobile technology, the mobile health industry presents many opportunities for improving healthcare globally.
mHealth technology can lower the price of health care, increase administrative efficiency, monitor and guide patient health, and help policy makers gather data on healthcare. However, there are many barriers preventing mHealth from reaching its full potential. How can we use mHealth to solve pressing healthcare concerns?
On March 13, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings will host an event to discuss mobile health in China and the United States.
SXSW Interactive: TechTank’s Top Five Issues for Tech Policy
South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) has officially kicked off in Texas. At TechTank we’re sharing some top issues related to tech policy as they unfold at the conference.
- Pompeo Wanted to Uninvite Snowden to the Party. Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS) published an open letter to the SXSW organizers on March 7. In the letter, Pompeo criticized Snowden (and by extension, SXSW). He called for the conference to withdraw Snowden’s invitation to the panel “A Virtual Conference with Edward Snowden”. Despite the request, Snowden joined the virtual conference March 10.
- Doctor’s Offices on their Death Beds. An SXSWi panel on the demise of the traditional doctor's office explains how “technology and policy are colliding to transform the patient experience. New devices are delivering continuous streams of health data to patients, who in turn are expecting physicians to engage with them via modern communication channels.”
- Wearables and the Governance Issues They Raise. Wearable technology is becoming increasingly relevant to all areas of our lives, whether it is the Samsung smartwatch, Google glass or the connected car that Scott Lange of Team Detroit described as “the biggest wearable device you could possibly have.”
- From Our Nation’s Capital to Texas’. SXSW will host no less than six members of Congress, a record number. Roll Call compiled their guide to SXSW Interactive in which they write: “Reps Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Suzan DelBene (D-WA), are all speaking on panels at the Interactive festival. Sens Mark Warner (D-VA), and Jerry Moran (R-KS), are taking part in an Economist-led panel on local tech economies.”
- Advancing the Drone Debate. Chaotic Moon Studios are the inventors of the CUPID (Chaotic Unmanned Personal Intercept Drone) that includes an 80,000 volt stun gun and acts as a non-lethal defense mechanism. They decided to address some of the real world issues surrounding weaponized, patrolling drones at the 2014 SXSW
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[March 11]
Using Standards to Make Big Data Analytics That Work
[Commentary] To get actionable results, Big Data analytics designers must develop a theory of how students learn and map which data points allow for inferences about those skills.
Standards make big data analytics work because they support the creation of more rigorous models of student learning and enable larger big data systems. Improving efficiency also lowers barriers to entry which encourages greater competition and frees up analytics designers to innovate. Standards can serve as the base of such a model because they consist of skills and the appropriate sequence for acquiring those competencies.
[March 7]
Social Physics for Better Life
On May 1, 2013, the Data for Development (D4D) initiative of Orange, MIT, Louvain University, UN Global Pulse, and the World Economic Forum, gathered 90 research organizations from around the world to report results from their analysis of data describing the mobility and call patterns of the citizens of the entire African country Côte d’Ivoire.
Researchers reported using this data to dramatically improve public health systems, transportation systems, and government transparency. In recent years we have developed a `social physics’ that allows us to analyze the `digital breadcrumbs’ that we all leave behind us as we move through the world (e.g., call records, credit card transactions, and GPS location fixes), and use this new analysis capability to improve government and public systems. As social physics analysis capabilities continue to evolve, scientists are discovering that we can begin to explain many things -- such as financial crashes, revolutions, panics -- that previously appeared to be random events.
[Pentland is the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and the Director of the Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program]