Buffalo (IN)-based LightStream has agreed to purchase Monon Telephone Company for an undisclosed price. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals, which are expected to be final in the first half of 2024. The Monon acquisition would add to LightStream’s existing fiber network in White and Pulaski Counties. Customers added through the potential acquisition can add managed Wi-Fi service to their home or business, in addition to internet and phone services, Lightstream noted in an announcement of the deal. In the announcement, LightStream said that it has invested more than $42 million in its network, although the company didn’t indicate over what time period that occurred.

'Tis the season for the House Commerce Committee to hold oversight hearings of federal telecommunications agencies. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Alan Davidson took the hot seat, answering questions on implementation of the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, spectrum policy and more. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was a recurring topic of discussion throughout the hearing, and one Assistant Secretary Davidson raised in his opening statement. The issue of the ACP running out of funds, and the impact that will have on BEAD, was raised by multiple Democrats on the committee, including Rep Yvette Clarke (D-NY), who recently said that she intends to introduce standalone legislation to fund the program by the end of 2023. Assistant Secretary Davidson also reiterated that the BEAD program will still adhere to tech neutrality, as required by the infrastructure law, but would prioritize "fiber first" where possible. Multiple Republicans on the committee raised concerns about how the BEAD program may or may not subject participating providers to "rate regulation" via state plans. While Assistant Secretary Davidson confirmed the NTIA will not engage in rate regulation at the federal level, as is prohibited, he would not commit to rejecting state plans that set a low-cost plan requirement.

I urge the Department of Justice (DOJ) to permit Apple and Google to inform their customers and the general public about demands for smartphone app notification records. In the spring of 2022, my office received a tip that government agencies in foreign countries were demanding smartphone “push” notification records from Google and Apple. My staff have been investigating this tip for the past year, which included contacting Apple and Google. In response to that query, the companies told my staff that information about this practice is restricted from public release by the government. Push notifications are the instant alerts delivered to smartphone users by apps, such as a notification about a new text message or a news update. They aren't sent directly from the app provider to users’ smartphones. Instead, they pass through a kind of digital post office run by the phone's operating system provider. These services ensure timely and efficient delivery of notifications, but this also means that Apple and Google serve as intermediaries in the transmission process. Apple and Google should be permitted to be transparent about the legal demands they receive, particularly from foreign governments, just as the companies regularly notify users about other types of government demands for data. These companies should be permitted to generally reveal whether they have been compelled to facilitate this surveillance practice, to publish aggregate statistics about the number of demands they receive, and unless temporarily gagged by a court, to notify specific customers about demands for their data. I ask that the DOJ repeal or modify any policies that impede this transparency.

The premise of the US Cyber Trust Mark is simple. As a device manufacturer, you certify that your device meets a list of cybersecurity criteria, such as that you use modern secure communications protocols and implement secure authentication, and in exchange, you get to put a flashy US Cyber Trust Mark logo on your packaging and sales materials, effectively an endorsement from the federal government of the security of your product. In addition to the moral and persuasive authority of the federal government on such issues, the true value of the mark will probably come from organizations, including the federal government itself, adopting the mark as a requirement for their procurement of connected devices. But for the mark to truly transform the security landscape, rather than just add another bureaucratic requirement to already convoluted and wasteful procurement policies, the program needs to be designed correctly. First, the program cannot merely be a checklist of specific security features that a product must have. If security could be reduced to a list of criteria, then it wouldn’t be such a continuing problem. Second, the goal should not be to hand out as many cyber trust mark certifications as possible. Third, receiving the US Cyber Trust Mark should not give a manufacturer a shield from liability. 

For the past year, the political class has been wearing itself out over what sounds like a simple question: Why are Americans so down on the economy? One point of agreement is that core indicators seem to have diverged from how people report actually feeling about the economy or are insufficient to explain such things in the first place. This sentimental breakdown presents as either a tricky puzzle or a severe emergency, depending, for example, on whether or not you’re trying to remain president. I won’t argue that smartphones are significantly responsible for America’s sense of economic malaise. What they are is unusually helpful for understanding and interpreting this malaise in common terms. They’re a heightened, sped-up microcosm of the weird, sour vibrancy of the economic moment, little worlds in which participants are both increasingly active and increasingly worried. The new economy surrounding the smartphone tells a clear story. You’ve got adjacent services that were once free and which now cost money. There are the services you subscribed to, pay for, and use on your phone that keep increasing their prices. There are the “free” products that don’t really work unless you pay for upgrades. These payments, and their prices, are almost universally the sorts of things that, while certainly possible to explain or rationalize, and individually not terribly significant, add up in an unpleasant way. You’re getting charged a higher price for the privilege of doing or getting things that, at best, feel the same. All of this can make sense, if you need it too, while also feeling — and looking! — like a bait and switch, a series of small affronts that cost a little bit of money and a lot of goodwill, telling an incomplete but persuasive story of things moving in the wrong direction, forever — especially if you’re young. Smartphones aren’t taking all your money, or even much of it, in the grand scheme of things. But they’re taking more of it than before and rubbing it in your face.