Free Press

Free Press Calls on the FCC to Update Its USF Programs and Push for Permanent Funding of the Affordable Connectivity Program

Free Press called on the Federal Communications Commission to reinvent its Universal Service Fund (USF) policies so that millions more people can afford the costs of connectivity in the United States. Free Press urged the FCC and Congress to redraft policies crafted in the late 1990s, and last overhauled more than a decade ago, to reflect the sector’s many changes. Free Press wrote, “the good intentions that fueled that effort are no longer a reliable blueprint in a fundamentally changed marketplace.

ISP investment before, during and after Title II's restoration and repeal

Free Press compiled a fact sheet on internet service provider (ISP) investments before, during and after the restoration and then repeal of broadband internet's classification as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act during the tenure of former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. Here are the highlights:

Eighty Civil-Society Groups Urge Senate to Confirm President Biden's Nominees to FCC and NTIA

80 civil-rights, media-justice, community-media, workers-rights and consumer-advocacy groups sent a letter urging Senate leadership to swiftly confirm Jessica Rosenworcel as chairwoman and Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, and Alan Davidson as the director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Advocacy Groups Urge FTC to Act Against Data Abuses and Discrimination

45 civil-rights, media-democracy and consumer-advocacy groups called on Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan to initiate a rulemaking to safeguard privacy, promote civil rights and set guardrails against the abuse of data online. Discriminatory and abusive data practices are prevalent across the digital economy, the groups wrote

Request for Notice of Inquiry into History of Systemic Racism in FCC Policy and Licensing

Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a racial reckoning has taken place in our country that has forced public and private institutions — including the media — to acknowledge their histories of racism. Reps.

Free Press Rebuts USTelecom's Latest Flawed and Misleading Claims on Broadband Prices

Today’s USTelecom update is just more of the same grossly misleading and inaccurate analysis of broadband prices first seen in a prior report released last year. This new report, like the earlier versions, falsely asserts that the broadband prices internet users pay are declining.

Price Too High and Rising: The Facts About America’s Broadband Affordability Gap

The facts on pricing and profits for the US broadband industry, the varying ways to measure prices, the important differences between these methods, and how certain methods can be used to obfuscate the reality of what is happening in the market and at the kitchen table. Government and industry data note the strength and weaknesses in each form and highlight how the ISP industry and its apologists use this kind of data to mislead. Some of our findings include:

Free Press and Access Now Urge the FCC to Get the Emergency Broadband Benefit to People in Need

Free Press and Access Now filed reply comments with the Federal Communications Commission urging strong and rapid implementation of the Emergency Broadband Benefit program.

Free Press and Access Now Urge FCC To Make Emergency Broadband Benefit Easily Accessible

Free Press and Access Now filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission urging strong and rapid implementation of the Emergency Broadband Benefit program established by Congress in the latest pandemic relief package. The EBB program offers a monthly benefit of up to $50  to low-income families and those financially impacted by the COVID-19 emergency. The benefit would help cover the cost of any broadband plan offered by participating internet providers.

Ajit Pai's Broadband Legacy: Haste and Waste

The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is looking more and more like one of the most wasteful projects in Federal Communications Commission history. Critiquing the FCC for awarding more than $2 billion to unproven companies using questionable technologies to serve questionable areas is fully valid. So is raising concerns about awards to a bankrupt incumbent. These two critiques can coexist. Yet FCC Chairman Pai views them as the bread of a “job well done” policy sandwich.

Broadband Boondoggle: Ajit Pai's $886M Gift to Elon Musk

To connect those most in need most often means connecting people to networks that already exist. That’s why it’s important to expose how the Federal Communications Commission’s rush to build new broadband networks has resulted in wasteful spending. Though I believe solving the rural-deployment problem is important, the roots of that problem are different from the root causes of the digital divide that plagues urban areas.

Fiber to the Clubhouse: Pai Subsidizes Broadband for the Rich

The Pai Federal Communications Commission took a victory lap when it announced the results of a $9.2-billion reverse auction that is supposed to bring broadband to over 5.2 million unserved homes and businesses.

Biden Wins. Trumpism Endures. What Free Press Is Doing Next.

While we’ll remain vigilant for whatever a lame-duck President Donald Trump — or let’s face it, the year 2020 — might bring, we will be putting our collective energy toward repairing the damage done over the past four years, while diligently working to expand what’s possible in a Joe Biden administration and new Congress. Our immediate priorities include:

Media 2070: An Invitation to Dream Up Media Reparations

This essay reveals the critical role that trafficking of enslaved Africans played in making our nation’s earliest media financially viable.

The Trump FCC's Repeal of Net Neutrality Is Still Wrong, and Still Hurting People Without Internet Access

No amount of lying by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai will change this reality: The Trump FCC’s repeal of Net Neutrality protections and agency authority were wrong in 2017 and they’re still wrong today.

The Trump FCC's Net Neutrality Repeal Is Still Wrong

Public interest commenters, including public safety officials, overwhelmingly agreed with Free Press’s assessment that the Federal Communications Commission’s misguided repeal of Net Neutrality and its authority over broadband internet access service (“BIAS”) harms the Lifeline program, pole attachment regulation, and public safety. These commenters also overwhelmingly agreed that the best remedy for such harms would be for the Commission to once again correctly classify broadband as a Title II service protected by strong open internet rules.

Members of Congress, Digital-Rights and Social-Justice Advocates Call for COVID-19 Legislation to Support Phone and Internet Access for All

Access Now, Common Sense Media, Consumer Reports, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press Action, Libraries Without Borders, MediaJustice, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge jointly delivered more than 110,000 petition signatures to the Congress.