Medium

[Commentary] The Internet has ruined the business model for journalism. And trolls are ruining the public debate on the open Internet. And Facebook is swallowing all of it into its walled gardens.

[Anders Emil Møller is the managing director and founder of trouble_co.]

[Commentary] Depending on who you talk to, the term 5G can mean everything from blocks of spectrum at 24 gigahertz or above to a dedicated cellular standard managed by the International Telecommunications Union. The differing definitions are a nightmare for anyone trying to make sense of what is purportedly the next big thing in communications. This is profoundly different from 4G, which was tied to a specific standard in telecommunications set by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a group of telecommunications standards bodies. But unlike 4G, 5G isn’t just for carriers. It’s for everyone, so everyone wants to play a part in saying what it means. Thus the term 5G is all inclusive.

The carriers and their equipment vendors tend to use the phrase to talk about delivering wireless connectivity using a combination of cellular and Wi-Fi services. Carriers will use small cells, Wi-Fi hotspots, cellular towers and anything else at their disposal to ensure a connection. (They used to call this “het net” or heterogeneous network.) The Federal Communications Commission and others have expanded the definition of 5G to cover the airwaves folks will use to deliver next-generation wireless services. So Google and Facebook’s plans to deliver gigabit wireless broadband using spectrum above 24 GHz also count. The FCC basically uses it to mean “future communications” and also spectrum. But slippery terminology aside, the key thing to think about when talking about 5G is that the goal of the transition is to handle more things on the network, as well as a huge variety of things.

[Stacey Higginbotham is a tech writer based in Austin, Texas]

[Commentary] In order to push the economy out of secular stagnation and to increase average family income for all income quintiles, the next government — both the Executive and Legislative Branches — needs a plan for the information and communication technologies (ICT) platform. Before the technologists and economists set their teeth against this assertion, I hastily add that the plan might be consolidation of the wireless industry or abandonment of network neutrality. Or it could be the promotion of multiple licensees for 5G (next generation wireless) services in a single geography. In other words, the plan could be to allow incumbents to gain advantages or it might be to support new entrants. It could favor redundant networks, or shared facilities. In any case, as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner famously said in Oval Office debates about rebuilding the balance sheets of the big banks, “Plan beats no plan.”

I can’t think of any way to describe Donald Trump’s ICT plan. However, Republican and Democratic leaders have limned some important parts of an ICT plan in various stalled bills over the last couple of years. And Hillary Clinton’s ICT goals are reasonably detailed, although perhaps purposely not presented as a plan per se. One legacy of the Cold War is the popular insistence on the market-trusting cluelessness of government, even while everyone expects extremely careful government thinking about monetary policy, medical research, national defense, tax and antitrust regimes, securities and drug regulation, and so forth. Whatever. My point is that the pieces of a plan are already out there. So here’s my crack at putting them together, adding in some suggestions of my own. There needs to be a three-part plan. Part one is about the economy; two, culture; three, government as an operations problem.

[Reed Hunt is CEO of CGC and former chairman of the FCC from 1993-1997.]

A Q&A with Sarah Solow, Hillary Clinton's domestic policy advisor.

Hillary Clinton wasn’t kidding around when she released her technology policy initiative in June. It was a gloriously wonky Gladstone bag of positions on issues batted around at think tanks, on digital democracy panels, and in Susan Crawford’s Backchannel columns—almost a K-Tel Records version of tech policy’s greatest hits. It was all there. Yes to high-speed access, international Internet governance, immigration reform, orphan works, online privacy, gig economy benefits, diversified workforce, STEM education, cybersecurity, network neutrality, and the United States Digital Service. No to Balkanization of the Internet, the digital divide, and venue shopping in patent litigation. Leading the team drawing the document was Sara Solow, the candidate’s domestic policy advisor. She agreed to provide us with some context on Hillary Clinton’s tech policy — and also wound up venting about the opponent’s apparent lack of a policy. Asked how they produced the tech policy, Salow said, "Last June or July (2015), we pulled together a working group with a whole bunch of outside experts and outside advisors, and a range of stakeholders, to start helping us collect policy proposals and thoughts about technology, innovation, and intellectual property. We had regular monthly meetings or phone calls, and I personally developed relationships with 30 outside experts, at least. It was a very collaborative, comprehensive process."

[Commentary] Schools, hospitals, libraries, and emergency services all have a few things in common — they are vital as anchors within a community and depend on high-speed Internet access to provide their services. Unfortunately, many low or moderate-income areas lack the broadband access that could help them revitalize their neighborhoods and be competitive in the digital age.

Households in the US making $25,000 or less have a broadband adoption rate of 47 percent, while those making more than $100,000 have an adoption rate of 92 percent. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas recently released a report on the importance of broadband access for community development. The report identifies how broadband can be transformative for a community in many ways. Digital skills are increasingly important in the workforce, students need the Internet to do research and complete their homework, access to financial services are more readily available with online banking, and telemedicine improves the health of people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to healthcare. Broadband also is increasingly essential for small businesses who can find resources online along with tools to modernize everything from payroll to marketing. Knowing how important broadband can be for communities, we’re excited to hear that the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) has redefined the guidelines for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) that will allow for loans towards broadband investments that can help bridge the digital divide. These new CRA guidelines will expand financing for the construction, expansion, improvement, maintenance or operation of essential infrastructure that help revitalize and modernize communities.

[FTTH Council is a non-profit association of companies and organizations involved in fiber to the home]

[Commentary] When it comes to hype, “5G” is this year’s “cold fusion.”

The meaning seems obvious — our current communications system is 4G, so of course we must already have the next generation in line. Telecom executives play on this perception. Lowell McAdam, the CEO of Verizon, says 5G is “wireless fiber.” (And I thought fiber was fiber.) SK Telecom says it will soon be able to transfer holograms and enable virtual reality over 5G networks that are 100 times faster than current 4G LTE connections. Noise about 5G is incessant and triumphant, a constant drumbeat of predictions crowing about the arrival any day now of seemingly costless, ubiquitous, instantaneous, unlimited connectivity. The “5G” story is far more complex, calculated, and contingent than anyone in the carriers’ PR departments wants you to know. There is no 5G standard — yet. This “wireless fiber” will never happen unless we have… more fiber. In order to work, 99% of any “5G” wireless deployment will have to be fiber running very close to every home and business.

[Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center]

The Saudi Arabia project kicked off in the fall of 2014, when Jan Chipchase got an e-mail from Ash Banerjee. Banerjee had just been hired as chief brand officer at Jawwy, a startup within STC that endeavored to launch a new mobile brand for young digitally native Saudis. As a middle-aged Indian executive who lived mostly in Dubai, Banerjee needed to figure out what would appeal to Saudi youth.

They developed a report. The insights were broad: The report included things like the allowance the government paid university students ($264/month) and the local minimum wage ($1413/month for Saudis; $666/month for non-Saudis). It described their living situations; both men and women live at home until they are married. It included diagrams that explained what types of coverings women wore, and when they were appropriate, as well as what socials apps people preferred (Skype, Instagram and Path are popular; Facebook and BBM are fading out). Not surprisingly, it also revealed that while mobile devices were important to Saudi men, they were absolutely critical for women. Instead of hiring a full-time driver, which might be prohibitively expensive and require planning ahead, for example, they could use on-demand services like Careem, for which they paid roughly $650/month. In May of 2016, Jawwy finally launched its service, which lets customers customize their mobile plans as they go. It’s still too early to say whether it will succeed, but the company said early signs are positive.

[Commentary] Right now, media ownership by people of color is on the brink of extinction. Of more than 1,500 full-powered television stations, only 42 remain under Latino ownership and 7 under African American ownership. Howard University Television, the nation’s first and only Black-owned public TV station, which has broadcast for more than 30 years, is auctioning off its airwaves. People of color cannot afford to lose any more of the platforms we speak from at such a critical moment in our national conversation — we must act now to tell the Federal Communications Commission to support current and future media owners of color.

[Aitza Haddad Nunez is a member of Howard Media Group at Howard University’s School of Communications]

[Commentary] In 2016, for the first time, Internet policy is prominent in both major-party platforms. While there are distinct disagreements and differences in approach to tech policy, there are also areas of common ground — revealing potential openings for bipartisan action.

Access: When it comes to getting everyone connected there are some signs of accord. But neither party goes far enough to address the real obstacles to bridging the digital divide. The GOP seeks to “facilitate access to spectrum by paving the way for high-speed, next-generation broadband deployment and competition on the Internet and for internet services.” The Democrats want to deploy “next-generation wireless service that will… bring faster Internet connections to underserved areas.” The Republican platform encourages “public-private partnerships to provide predictable support for connecting rural areas so that every American can fully participate in the global economy.” The Democrats want government to take it one step further by working to “finish the job of connecting every household in America to high-speed broadband, increase Internet adoption, and help hook up anchor institutions so they can offer free Wi-Fi to the public.” While both platforms emphasize rural connections, they ignore the adoption gap in urban areas, as my colleague S. Derek Turner, research director at Free Press, explains. “The emphasis on rural is understandable, but the truth is we’ve made strides in rural areas,” Turner said, noting that there are both public and private initiatives to build out. “Rural areas have near-universal coverage; what they lack is multiple options at higher speeds. We’ve continued to ignore the competition problem, which impacts lower-income people and people of color the most.”

[Tim Karr advocates for universal access to open networks at Free Press and Free Press Action Fund]

[Commentary] Network neutrality is about attempting to limit the power of Internet access network operators (like Charter or Comcast) to choose winners and losers among the services that have to use their wires — because, remember, competition is so limited — to reach consumers. It’s a kind of synthetic attempt to keep the operators from favoring their own commercial interests when sending Internet traffic from other people to you (or vice versa). But the problem is that where network operators don’t have to compete, and use their digital pipes for multiple purposes (like providing their own TV services that feel just like over-the-top video services), it’s so easy for them to act like media distribution companies, slicing and dicing and packaging, rather than transport providers. And ultimately, that kind of behavior is designed to serve their commercial interests. It’s only rational. But it’s harmful to new competitors and ultimately to consumers.

In the US, the net neutrality issue has been forced to bear too much weight. It stands in for a larger problem that a single law or regulation can’t address. It’s like a small white bird perched on the head of a hippo. The little bird is noticeable and interesting, but really just a side-effect of the reality of the hippo himself. And the hippo in this metaphor is the lack of competition for network access services, particularly higher-capacity services, in a fundamentally unregulated market.

[Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center]