Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies

The Federal Communications Commission’s Section 706 Problem

Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has played a recurring supplemental role in the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) efforts to reclassify Broadband Internet Access Services as a Title II common carrier telecommunications service under the auspices of Net Neutrality. Section 706 instructs the Commission to encourage the “reasonable and timely” deployment of broadband services to all Americans.

Will Digital Discrimination Policies End Discount Plans for Low Income Consumers?

The Federal Communications Commission plans to adopt both a disparate treatment (intent) and disparate impact (effects) analysis to determine whether there is any discrimination of internet access.

Digital Discrimination and Broadband Subsidies: Which Matters?

Buried deep within the stunning array of broadband subsidy provisions contained in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 lies Section 60506—labeled “Digital Discrimination”—which requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue rules to prevent “digital discrimination of access based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin,” while taking into account the issues of “technical and economic feasibility.”1 Although Section 60506 perhaps represents a sign of our political times,2 there simply is no credible evidence of a racial disparity in

Digital Discrimination Under Disparate Impact: A Legal and Economic Analysis

With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 providing sufficient funding to deploy broadband to nearly every household in the nation, the Digital Discrimination provisions contained in Section 60506 of the statute are a curiosity. Nonetheless, Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission to write rules implementing the statutory provision. The FCC recently released draft final rules implementing Section 60506 in anticipation of its November 2023 Open Meeting which adopt a somewhat standard disparate impact analysis.

Regulatory Implications of Turning Internet Platforms into Common Carriers

The debate over how internet platforms moderate content has reached a fever pitch. To get around First Amendment concerns, some proponents of content moderation regulation argue that internet platforms should be regulated as “common carriers”—that is, internet platforms should be legally obligated to serve all comers without discrimination. As these proponents regularly point to communications law as an analytical template, it appears that the term “common carrier” has become a euphemism for full-blown public utility regulation complete with a dedicated regulator.

The Broadband Tribal Gap: An Empirical Evaluation

This study focuses on broadband deployment over the years 2014- 2020 in Tribal and non-Tribal census tracts using the Federal Communications Commission’s Form 477 data to quantify progress. This “Tribal Gap” is measured as the difference in average broadband availability between Tribal and non-Tribal census tracts. Unmatched and matched samples are used, and a sample of census tracts within 30 miles of a Tribal area is also analyzed with and without matching.

Middle-Class Affordability of Broadband: An Empirical Look at the Threshold Question

To receive subsidies to expand broadband to unserved areas under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) requires states to implement plans to ensure middle-class affordability. Since the NTIA did not conclude that broadband was unaffordable for middle-class households, the threshold question is whether broadband is affordable to the middle class. Affordability, which has no formal definition, is defined by reference to adoption.

Speed-Tests: Substitute for, or Complement to, Broadband Maps?

The Federal Communications Commission’s existing broadband availability maps have been heavily criticized as inaccurate, especially for the purpose of distributing billions in subsidy dollars to extend broadband networks to unserved areas. In a rush to distribute the National Telecommunication and Information Administration's (NTIA's) Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) subsidy dollars, a few states have initiated their own mapping efforts and some advocates have proposed alternative mapping means using speed-test data to identify areas that lack adequate broadband.

Digital Discrimination: Fiber Availability and Speeds by Race and Income

The lack of broadband in many rural and Tribal communities is widely recognized, but there are also claims of a lack of broadband availability in predominantly Minority and urban communities, sometimes labeled digital redlining or digital discrimination. Motivated by such claims, the bi-partisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA) includes a specific provision to address digital discrimination and the Federal Communications Commission is currently contemplating formal rules for such.

Phoenix Center Releases Study Assessing the Accuracy of FCC Form 477 Broadband Availability Data

In a new analysis entitled A Quality Check on Form 477 Data: Errors, Subsidies, and Econometrics, Phoenix Center Chief Economist Dr. George Ford compares Federal Communications Commission Form 477 data to the State of Georgia's broadband availability survey data to make several interesting findings:

Answering the DC Circuit's Remand of the Pole Attachment Question

According to the DC Circuit’s logic, the Federal Communications Commission’s jurisdiction over broadband Internet access services now resides in some sort of regulatory purgatory.

Infrastructure Investment After Title II

USTelecom recently released an update to its US broadband industry capital spending series. In this update, USTelecom reported that sector investment rose $1.5 billion (or 2%) between 2016 and 2017—a reversal of a two-year decline following the 2015 Open Internet Order.