Wireless Internet

The 116th Congress is underway. In the background of a partial government shutdown, lawmakers are getting their committee assignments. At Benton, we keep a close eye on two key Congressional panels because of their jurisdiction over many telecommunications issues and oversight of the Federal Communications Commission: 1) the House Commerce Committee's Communications and Technology Subcommittee, and 2) the Senate Commerce Committee. Here's a look at some key telecom policymakers -- and their priorities -- in the 116th Congress. 

Allconnect partnered with YouGov to conduct a survey to see why people are making the switch to smartphone-only internet. According to our research, one of the most common reasons for using a smartphone instead of traditional internet service is cost. Our survey found that of the 11 percent of U.S. adults only using a smartphone to connect to the internet at home, 36 percent did so because traditional internet coverage was too expensive. A majority of our smartphone-only internet participants reported having both an income level under $40,000 and no college education.

Republican leaders of the House Commerce Committee and Subcommittees sent letters requesting information from six companies about the sale and misuse of cell phone geolocation data. The letters were sent to Zumingo, Microbilt, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. The letters seek to increase transparency surrounding how US wireless carriers and third parties are accessing, transferring, storing, and securing customer location information.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai refused to brief House Commerce Committee staff on why the FCC has yet to end wireless carriers’ unauthorized disclosure of consumers’ real-time location data and what actions the FCC has taken to address the issue to date.

The Federal Communications Commission’s 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom (RIF) Order reclassified mobile broadband Internet access service from a commercial mobile service to a private mobile service, largely by ignoring the integration of the Internet with the telephone network.  This reclassification gave the FCC the license to repeal the 2015 net neutrality rules for mobile broadband service. How did this FCC get to the conclusion that the most important public mobile service of our time is a private mobile service?

Harvard Law School's Susan Crawford has written a new book,  “Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution — and Why America Might Miss It.” She's assembled her concerns about US connectivity, along with her suggestions how to alleviate them. The data-carrying capacity of the next generation of fiber-optics, known as “5G” (as the fifth generation of wireless telecommunications technology), will give countries that invest in those advanced networks a huge advantage over those that don’t.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) is eyeing a potential hearing on 5G wireless deployment and said bipartisan legislation from the previous Congress from Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) — the STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act — could be a good starting point for the panel’s examination. “I would expect 5G and privacy to be among the first issues,” said Chairman Wicker. “I would hope that [5G] would be one of our first hearings.”

People with disabilities affecting mobility, vision, hearing, and cognitive function often move to cities to take advantage of their comprehensive transit systems and social services. But US law doesn’t specify how municipalities should design and implement digital services for disabled people. As a result, cities sometimes adopt new technologies that can end up causing, rather than resolving, problems of accessibility.

Welcome to 2019, where you will find aggressively marketed to you a new upgrade in Wi-Fi called “Wi-Fi 6” and just about every mobile provider will try to sell you some “new, exciting, 5G service!” But funny thing. If you buy a new “Wi-Fi 6” wireless router you know exactly what you’re getting. It supports the latest IEEE 802.11ax protocol, operating on existing Wi-Fi frequencies of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, and any other frequencies listed on the package.