Analysis

This paper reviews experiences with subsidizing telecommunications services, and broadband in particular, in the United States and around the world. Based on those lessons it proposes a path forward intended to yield the biggest broadband bang for the subsidy buck.

Specifically, an effective broadband subsidy program would:
Set a single, clear objective: bring broadband service to populated areas that do not have it.
Define “broadband” by taking into account consumer demand characteristics. This definition should be use-centric, not technology-centric. Any technology should be eligible to participate in the auction.
Make the program a one-time subsidy.
Rank-order the bids in terms of cost-effectiveness in terms of new locations, not area, connected per subsidy dollar. Fund the most cost-effective project first, the next most costeffective second, and so on until the budget is exhausted.
Rigorously evaluate the results and have organizations other than the one implementing the program conduct the evaluations.

One of the central arguments in the Net Neutrality debate is over whether the Federal Communications Commission’s controversial 2015 decision to reclassify broadband Internet access as a common carrier “telecommunications” service had a negative effect on network investment in 2016. The evidence is mounting that it did. Free Press believes the consistency in the data does not carry over to Broadband Service Providers’ (“BSPs”) advocacy, however. Comparing statements made by BSPs to the FCC and to Wall Street, Free Press contends that these apparent inconsistencies imply that the companies are lying to the Commission and to the public about the effect of Title II on investment. The Internet Association—a trade group of companies favoring aggressive Internet regulation—recently borrowed from Free Press’s report to produce an online video summarizing the Free Press narrative.

Ford subjects Free Press and the Internet Association’s anecdotal evidence to review, and finds that it is Free Press and the Internet Association—and not BSPs—who are not telling the whole story. Free Press and the Internet Association have presented a false narrative to both the FCC and the public at large, and that their evidence actually points to the harms of reclassification on investment incentives.

No matter how ready a city is to move toward advanced mobility models, municipal officials can already begin developing a vision for what integrated mobility ought to look like and how their cities might evolve accordingly. More important, they can consider how to manage the transition so that its benefits are maximized in line with local priorities for improving residents’ quality of life.

To help city leaders structure their thinking, we have created scenarios for how mobility might change in three types of cities: dense cities in developed economies, dense cities in emerging economies, and sprawling metropolitan areas in developed economies. Each scenario accounts for present-day conditions and highlights both opportunities and challenges. In this article, we lay out these visions for the future of mobility, along with ideas about how municipal officials and other urban stakeholders can help their cities navigate toward positive outcomes.

[Commentary] On June 19, 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States used an unlikely vehicle to expand the scope of First Amendment protection for Internet users. In Peckingham v. North Carolina, speaking for five members of the Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy started with the general principle that the Court has always recognized the “fundamental principle of the First Amendment ... that all persons have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more.” This is the second important Supreme Court opinion addressing the role of the Internet in American life. The first, Reno v. ACLU, was issued in 1997, during the Internet’s dial-up era. Its depiction of the Internet as a medium deserving the same high degree of First Amendment protection as traditional print media played an essential role in the legal framework for the Internet’s evolution over the last two decades. Justice Kennedy’s Peckingham decision consciously builds upon Reno’s recognition of the Internet as offering “relatively unlimited low-cost capacity for communication of all kinds,” specifically citing how people use Facebook (“users can debate religion and politics with close friends ... or share vacation photos”), LinkedIn (“users can look for work [or] advertise for employees”) and Twitter (“users can petition their elected representatives and otherwise engage with them in a direct manner”) as examples. Justice Kennedy stressed the importance of insuring that the law leave ample room for the further evolution of the Internet’s platform for free expression.

[Andrew Jay Schwartzman is the Benton Senior Counselor at the Public Interest Communications Law Project at Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Public Representation]

Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods is the M&A deal of the year, with the potential to massively reroute consumer retail spending. The spillover effects of economic disruption at this scale – both positive and negative – are beyond anyone’s capacity to predict. That said, only a fool would claim that Amazon is not having society-wide impacts, including exacerbating the age-old tension between labor and technology capital.

In a very short one page decision, the US Court of Appeals rejected the requests filed by public interest groups to stay the effect of the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to reinstate the UHF discount. For the foreseeable future, this decision will free many broadcast television groups to acquire more television stations as UHF stations (which most TV stations now are) count for only half their audience reach in assessing compliance with the 39% limit on the national audience share that any TV owner can have.

While, contrary to some press reports, this does not signal the Court’s final approval of the FCC’s decision to reinstate the discount, it does suggest the direction which the Court is likely to take in its assessment of this Commission decision. This decision does not end the case. The public interest groups can continue to pursue their appeal though full briefing and oral argument and a full court decision. However, the rejection of the stay certainly increases the odds that the FCC will ultimately prevail in its defense of the reinstatement of the UHF discount.

One of the stranger ideas going around among the anti-net neutrality crowd (and in the Federal Communication Commission’s proposal to roll back the net neutrality rules) is the idea that the current rules, adopted by the previous FCC, contain a loophole that allows Internet Service Providers to block whatever websites they want to and generally avoid the rules, provided they use the right magic words--namely, that if they simply say ahead of time they intend to violate the rules, they’re no longer subject to them. This is wrong—the rules only cover broadband ISPs, which are defined quite precisely, but there’s no way for an ISP to continue offering what anyone would recognize as “internet access” without being covered by the rules.

Once upon a time, public congressional hearings were a means of helping Americans better understand the workings of their government. But the Trump administration and its alt-right allies, aided by the power of the internet, is distorting their role, turning them into fodder for misinformation instead.

The Trump administration and some of the right-wing media are creating a “Putinesque alternate reality,” said John Schindler, a former National Security Agency intelligence analyst, said after former FBI Director James Comey testified. Their commentary didn’t “look like they saw the same Comey testimony that I did,” he said. Instead, their point of view so far has seemed to be: “Nothing happened to cause the president’s arrest today so we’re winning, we’re vindicated, and it’s a Democratic plot.”

This polarization goes much deeper than just the issue of Russian interference.

[Commentary] Among the range of complex foreign policy issues yet to be addressed by the Trump administration is a serious concern for global internet freedom.

The growing restrictions on internet freedom around the world are easy to document; less so any visible American strategy that would reverse the ominous trends at hand. Let’s review the dimensions of the problem in brief. The latest data from the respected nonprofit organization, Freedom House, provides a contextual understanding, based on tracking global internet freedom in 65 countries, comprising 88 percent of internet users worldwide. According to its most recent annual report in this area, Freedom on the Net 2016, two-thirds of the world’s internet users live under government censorship. Internet freedom around the world declined in 2016 for the sixth consecutive year.

There has been radio silence to date about this issue from the White House and the Department of State. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should provide both symbolism and substance for a new U.S. global internet freedom agenda in a high-profile address that echoes the words of his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, in a January 2010 speech at the Newseum–“This is a very important speech on a very important subject.” This phrase alone would send a strong diplomatic signal to the international community that the United States still considers internet freedom to be a critical area of foreign policy engagement. Equally important, it would mark the start of an updated internet freedom agenda based on success metrics and aimed at reversing the all-too-apparent downward spiral of repression.

This report examines the implications for communities of color of fifth-generation wireless technology (also known as 5G) and Smart City technology. Currently, major mobile network operators, such as AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, offer the fourth generation of wireless broadband technology (4G). Over the next four years, these companies will start to offer 5G in select cities. 5G will facilitate the growth of Smart City technologies, which are tools that allow cities and counties to manage public services such as transportation and power grids more efficiently.