Labor

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.

AT&T’s Digital Redlining Leaving Communities Behind for Profit

AT&T has made fiber-to-the-home available to fewer than a third of the households in its footprint. Across rural counties in AT&T’s footprint, only 5 percent of households have access to fiber. For 28 percent of the households in its network footprint, AT&T’s internet service does not meet the FCC’s 25/3 Mbps benchmark to be considered broadband. AT&T prioritizes network upgrades to wealthier areas, leaving lower income communities with outdated technologies -- households with fiber available have median income 34 percent higher than those with DSL only.

President Trump to Boost 5G Workforce Training

The Department of Labor explicitly named 5G wireless network building as a goal when recently designating the Wireless Infrastructure Association as an industry intermediary to help train wireless workers — something that the association has long clamored for amid plans to spend millions of dollars on the effort.

Coronavirus may preview an acceleration of the digital divide

The coronavirus crisis may offer a grim preview of further marginalization for Americans of color in the coming decades, a new Deutsche Bank report concludes. "COVID is a picture of what the world might look like in the future as it gets more digitized," Apjit Walia, a technology strategist with Deutsche Bank, told Axios.

Broadband & Telehealth in North Carolina's Appalachian Coal-Impacted Communities

The Broadband Infrastructure Office and the NC Department of Health and Human Services Office of Rural Health conducted a feasibility study that examined the broadband, health care and telehealth assets – including the health disparities and broadband gaps as well as opportunities – for the 20 counties in North Carolina’s Appalachian region that are most affected by the coal industry. The study confirmed that:

Nearly a Third of American Employees Worked Remotely in 2019, NTIA Data Show

Recently, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration reported initial results from our latest NTIA Internet Use Survey, which showed that Americans were increasingly using a larger and more varied range of devices. But with dozens of topics covered in the survey, there is a lot more we can learn from this data collection, including questions about online activities such as checking email, watching videos and participating in the sharing economy.

Fuel the economic recovery by closing the great digital divide

Expanding the ability to work remotely, learn remotely, and conduct health care appointments through telehealth will be key steps in permitting economic activity to expand in the second half of 2020, and beyond. Further, a report by the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society shows that connected students are more likely to check their grades, do research, look up class information, and collaborate with peers than unconnected students. But local responses to the pandemic have raised the stakes on differential access to the internet.

The Digital Divide and the Pandemic: Working from Home and Broadband and Internet Access

The COVID-19 public health crisis has acutely and maybe even permanently changed the way many of us work. The future of the work environment is still unknown but we are increasingly seeing a future where telework, telelearning, and telehealth are valuable commodities for public health and economic resilience. However, short- and long-term investments are critical to improving our current state of work and internet access, both through broadband and increased affordability. Below are some suggestions.

Short-term responses

Adapting Jobs Programs for Today and Tomorrow

“Middle-skill” jobs make up a large portion of the market, has positions to fill, but suffers from a dearth of trained workers—especially when it comes to digital skills. Digital skills refer to a person’s ability to use digital tools, applications, and networks to access and manage information. Pandemic-driven unemployment will only put the middle-skill issue into sharper relief.

Working from Home and Broadband Access in Oregon

There is considerable speculation about how the pandemic will change the way we live. In particular our office is fielding a lot of questions about working from home and whether households may increasingly choose to live in the suburbs or rural areas as a result. Our office has pulled together and updated some of our previous research on working from home and broadband access here in Oregon. Some findings:

The 4G Decade: Quantifying the Benefits

Nearly 17 million new US jobs (16.7 million) were created during the nine-year period when 4G wireless networks were deployed and became a key driver of the US economy. At the beginning of the 4G era in 2011, 3.7 million jobs were connected to the wireless industry – a number that rose to 20.4 million by 2019. Overall, the US wireless industry gross domestic product (GDP) grew 253% to $690.5 billion between 2011 and 2019. Experts expect the industry’s GDP to increase by 126% between 2011 and 2019 to $441.8 billion. But instead, wireless GDP hit $690.5 billion in 2019.

Key facts about digital-native news outlets amid staff cuts, revenue losses

Digital-native news outlets – those “born on the web” – have seen a wave of cuts since the outbreak of the coronavirus as financial troubles continue to roil the news media. Quartz laid off 80 staffers as its advertising revenue declined by over half. BuzzFeed shut down its divisions in the UK and Australia while furloughing dozens in the United States, and Vox furloughed about 100. The Outline has shut down entirely. Here are key facts about digital-native news organizations. All data predates the current downturn related to the coronavirus:

Race and class divide: Black and Hispanic service workers are tech's growing underclass

A new and growing underclass is working inside some of the world's wealthiest companies. They push mops and clean toilets. They cook and serve gourmet lunches. They patrol suburban office parks. They ferry technology workers to and from their jobs in luxury shuttle buses. But they are not on the payroll at Apple, Facebook or Google, companies famous for showering their workers with six-figure salaries, stock options and perks. Instead they are employed by outside contractors. And they say the bounty from the technology boom is not trickling down to them. 

How remote work risks a new digital jobs divide for minorities

The mass migration to remote work helped companies solve a major coronavirus challenge, but the recent civil unrest has exposed diversity and opportunity gaps across the U.S., which telecommuting is beginning to exacerbate. Low-income students and students of color entering the workforce are struggling to overcome a telecommuting digital divide. The data is starting to back up the personal experience.

T-Mobile already trying to get out of merger conditions on 5G and hiring

T-Mobile is already trying to get out of merger conditions imposed by state regulators in California less than three months after completing its acquisition of Sprint. T-Mobile filed a petition with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), asking the agency to provide two extra years to meet 5G build-out requirements and to eliminate a requirement to add 1,000 new employees. T-Mobile, which had agreed to other conditions imposed by the federal government, completed the Sprint merger on April 1 without waiting for California's approval.

AT&T confirms thousands of job cuts, 250 store closings

AT&T confirmed it is planning widespread job cuts that include managers and executives, in addition to 3,400 technician and clerical jobs. It will also close 250 retail stores, impacting 1,300 retail jobs. While the cuts can't be separated from the COVID-19 impact on the economy, the moves also come as the mobile industry has consolidated from four national players to three following T-Mobile's acquisition of Sprint. AT&T said the store closures were planned, but accelerated by the pandemic. Most store employees will be offered another job with AT&T, the company said.

Comcast Announces $100 Million Multiyear Plan to Advance Social Justice and Equality

Comcast is developing a comprehensive, multiyear plan to allocate $100 million to fight injustice and inequality against any race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation or ability. There will be $75 million in cash and $25 million in media that will be distributed over the next three years.

Black Technologists Hope New Conversations About Race Spark Overdue Change

Protests around the country in the wake of the killing of George Floyd while in police custody are reigniting discussion of black representation in the technology sector. Despite yearslong efforts by companies to diversify their tech workforces, black people accounted for 7.8% of people in core information-technology occupations in the U.S., according to CompTIA, an IT trade group. Several black tech executives said they hope the current attention on racial disparities will bring change, and in turn, expand the participation of blacks in technology in ways they haven’t seen before.

Of course technology perpetuates racism. It was designed that way.

Today the United States crumbles under the weight of two pandemics: coronavirus and police brutality. Both wreak physical and psychological violence. Both disproportionately kill and debilitate black and brown people. And both are animated by technology that we design, repurpose, and deploy—whether it’s contact tracing, facial recognition, or social media. We often call on technology to help solve problems.

Senate Commerce Committee Approves Tech-Related Bills

The Senate Commerce Committee approved a handful of communications-related bills May 20, favorably recommending them to the full Senate for a vote and passage. Approved bills include:

House Republicans Announce Emerging Tech Agenda

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR) and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) announced the subcommittee’s agenda to ensure American leadership in emerging technology to beat China and other challenges to global competitiveness. The emerging technology agenda includes 15 bills designed to advance American leadership. The objectives of the legislation are "Advancing and Securing Emerging Technologies", "Global Data Innovation and Security", "Advancing Innovation Across the Country", and "Combating Harms Through Innovation". 

Commerce Dept Announces Availability of $1.5 Billion in CARES Act Funds, Including Broadband, to Aid Communities Impacted by the Coronavirus Pandemic

Commerce Sec Wilbur Ross announced that the Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) is now accepting applications from eligible grantees for  Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) supplemental funds (EDA CARES Act Recovery Assistance) intended to help communities prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus. On March 27, 2020, President Donald Trump signed the $2 trillion CARES Act into law. The CARES Act provides EDA with $1.5 billion of which $1.467 billion is available for grant making.

America at the Crossroads

History at the crossroads, one of those inflection points when we have the opportunity to learn from our experiences and use them to build a better future. Coronavirus brings us to another of those crossroads. Which road will we take?

FCC Makes It Easier for Companies to Rehire Laid Off Employees

The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau, in consultation with the Enforcement Bureau, waives the broad outreach requirements of the FCC's Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) recruitment rules in the limited circumstances relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.