Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare

Today, there is no expert agency ensuring that the internet is fast, open, and fair. Since the birth of the modern internet, the Federal Communications Commission had played that role. It makes sense. These are principles that have deep origins in communications law and history. After all, back in the era when communications meant telephony, every call went through, and your phone company could not cut off your call or edit the content of your conversation.

A number of readers have reached out to us at Benton asking for help figuring out where to find all the pools of broadband support appropriated by Congress over the past year. So we've decided to create this placeholder for all the funding we've seen in the CARES Act, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, and the American Rescue Plan.

With great drama, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 became law on December 27, 2021. The $2.3 trillion COVID relief and government spending bill extended unemployment benefits and ensured the government can keep running. The $900 billion COVID relief provision includes over $7 billion to help improve connectivity in the U.S.

Millions of records that the Federal Communications Commission’s top lawyer once fought to hold back from state law enforcement officials now serve as key evidence in a year-long probe into cases of Americans being impersonated during the agency’s latest net neutrality proceeding.

Verizon is pledging to stop selling information on phone owners’ locations to data brokers, stepping back from a business practice that has drawn criticism for endangering privacy. The data has allowed outside companies to pinpoint the location of wireless devices without their owners’ knowledge or consent. Verizon said that about 75 companies have been obtaining its customer data from two little-known CA-based brokers that Verizon supplies directly — LocationSmart and Zumigo.

Some White House officials view next-generation 5G wireless service as a “key area of competition,” and they say that the threat from China, in particular, justifies a “moonshot” government effort like the construction of the interstate highway system. A National Security Council memo urges the Trump administration to consider extraordinary efforts to clear the way for the new technology or even to help build it in order to counter the growing economic and political threat from China’s aggressive efforts to develop 5G. 

The Federal Communications Commission will vote on reimposing Title II authority over broadband at its April 25 meeting. Here are just a few of the things that can happen after the FCC reintroduces Title II regulation:

It may seem as though the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) has been talking about the lack of adequate Rip and Replace funding for years—and it has been. But now things are really starting to hit the fan. Congress created the Rip and Replace program in 2020 to get Chinese components out of US wireless networks, but the funding fell $3 billion short of what’s needed to finish the job.

The American Samoa draft BROADBANDiNEI Digital Equity Plan—released by the Broadband Coordination, Opportunities, Redevelopment and Deployment (BCORD) Office—reflects priorities, strategies, collective needs, and opportunities identified through local coordination with regards to providing affordable, accessible, secure, equitable, internet-for-all.

On battlefields from Ukraine to Sudan, Starlink provides immediate and largely secure access to the internet. Besides solving the age-old problem of effective communications between troops and their commanders, Starlink provides a way to control drones and other advanced technologies that have become a critical part of modern warfare.