Internet/Broadband

Federal and state lawmakers are considering an array of measures aimed at bringing broadband access to the 24 million Americans who lack this service. During the current legislative session, lawmakers have enacted dozens of pieces of legislation to fund connectivity programs, direct more support to projects in underserved areas, streamline policy and procedures, and conduct needed research. These laws and other proposed bills reflect lawmakers’ recognition of how essential high-speed internet has become to peoples’ lives—and the economy.

Apparently, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood subpoenaed more than a dozen telecommunications trade groups, lobbying contractors, and Washington advocacy organizations, seeking to determine whether the groups submitted millions of fraudulent public comments to sway a critical federal decision on internet regulation.

California's network neutrality law will cause "significant lost revenues" for Comcast, the nation's largest cable company said in a court filing. Comcast described the net neutrality law's potential impact on its ability to charge online service providers and network operators for network interconnection.

We urgently need to rethink public policy interventions to help countries navigate opportunities and challenges linked to digital advances in the food economy. The promise of digital disruption in agriculture is enormous. Producing food and fiber is a data- and capital-intensive business. On the data side, a farmer’s feel for how to combine seeds, soil, water, and weather can now be complemented by mobile-phone based extension services, remote sensing data, and artificial intelligence.

Federal Trade Commissioner Rohit Chopra set the stage for the agency’s look at tech platforms by focusing on how digital marketplaces harvest data, and how operators set the rules for buying and selling in the marketplaces.

The Kansas congressional delegation called on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to restore sufficiency and predictability to the Universal Service Fund (USF) High Cost program’s budget. The letter was signed by every member of the delegation, including Sens Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Reps Roger Marshall (R-KS), Lynn Jenkins (R-KS), Kevin Yoder (R-KS) and Ron Estes (R-KS).

The received wisdom was once that a unified, unbounded web promoted democracy through the free flow of information. Things don’t seem quite so simple anymore. All signs point to a future with three internets: one internet led by China, one internet led by the United States, and one internet led by the European Union. All three regions are generating sets of rules, regulations and norms that are beginning to rub up against one another.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) brought his fight for fifth-generation (5G) internet speeds to Sioux Falls (SD) on Oct 12 during a field hearing of the committee.  "I've heard from stakeholders throughout the country ... it will transform our everyday lives," Chairman Thune said, referring to its potential in the use of driverless cars, precision agriculture and e-medicine.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said she thinks Tennessee's approach to providing high-speed Internet and broadband services to rural areas "has worked well in our state" and she reiterated her opposition to having government utilities like EPB expand outside their territories to compete with AT&T, Comcast and other private telecom companies.

According to US News and World Report, Iowa is the most connected state in the nation, which presumably means they have a high percentage of households with access to high-speed internet. But the data used for that analysis is deeply flawed. It is easy to find yourself completely unconnected from the wires and signals that pull us all together through our computers and mobile devices. Reports of IA’s connectivity are greatly exaggerated, according to Ashley Hitt, director of GIS Services for the broadband advocacy nonprofit Connected Nation.