Research

I speak to you this morning as the President’s Science and Technology Advisor, who has been given three interconnected tasks in pursuit of a Golden Age of Innovation: to maintain American technological leadership; to ensure all Americans enjoy the fruit of transformative advances in science and technology; and, a mission I believe we all share, to revitalize America’s scientific enterprise.... To empower America’s researchers to achieve groundbreaking discoveries and to reinvigorate our national science enterprise, we must scrutinize our existing approach and recommit ourselves to best prac

President Donald Trump called a Biden-era law to expand high-speed internet access "racist" and "illegal." We asked the White House and federal departments involved in the program for evidence to support Trump’s statement and received no reply.

This study examines the offerings of 21 broadband providers across four U.S. cities (Boston, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Seattle) to assess trends in consumer broadband pricing and availability. The objectives were: (1) to understand the expected cost of home broadband service in the United States and how this varied across different user classes, (2) to evaluate how these trends vary across the country’s cities and regions, and (3) to assess the availability of super high-speed plans across providers. Key findings include: 

Some longtime readers may recall that Al Gore created the internet. Although they also know that some credit should be shared with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The "law that created the internet" generally immunizes online platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, and Uber from liability for third-party user content (e.g., posts, comments, videos) and for the moderation of that content. The law has long been discussed as both a protector of free speech and an enabler of platform abuse.

In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission distributes subsidies to broadband providers to offer high-speed broadband in unserved areas. This article examines the FCC’s largest program to date, the 2020 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction, which distributed billions of dollars and replaced a subsidy mechanism based on engineering cost estimates. I propose a novel model to estimate the private costs of an incumbent wireline provider in areas adjacent to the incumbent’s existing infrastructure.

The Government Accountability Office was asked to review federal broadband efforts.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has exploded in popularity in recent years, altering the technological landscape worldwide. To try and understand how these seismic shifts will impact communications systems in the United States, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessed the environmental and human effects of generative AI. GAO highlights five AI risks and challenges that could result in substantial human effects.

The first brief explains how  Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act influences the digital landscape for Black users. While Section 230 has helped foster free expression and innovation online, it also creates gaps in accountability — enabling the spread of harmful and discriminatory content with limited consequences for platforms.

Millions of Black Americans have been impacted by the digital divide, the gulf between people who have access to any internet at all and those who don't.

The number of states with 60% or more users experiencing the Federal Communications Commission’s minimum standard for fixed broadband speeds of 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream increased from nine states in the first half (1H) 2024 to 22 states (and the District of Columbia) in 2H 2024. Seven states have 65% of more users experiencing the FCC’s minimum standard for broadband of 100/20 Mbps. New Mexico, Colorado, and Minnesota had the biggest year-over-year increase in the percentage of Speedtest users that receive 100/20 Mbps broadband speeds. New Jersey, Connecticu