Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA): “The Trump Administration’s decision to abandon net neutrality continues to harm consumers and small businesses, leaving a few large corporations in control of an essential component of modern life.  In April, the House passed the Save the Internet Act to restore basic consumer protections online and preserve a free and open Internet.

Gigi Sohn, Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Benton Institute for Broadband & Society Senior Fellow & Public Advocate:  "The DC Circuit Court has spoken very clearly --  the states are now free to do what the FCC will not –- assert authority over the broadband market and protect an open Internet. Broadband providers will inevitably complain about having to comply with a so-called 'patchwork' of different state laws, but that is of their own making.

Obviously, there's no bigger story this week than the possible impeachment of the 45th president of the United States. But if we still have your attention, here's some items of note we found this week. 1) Court Again Rejects FCC Attempt to Loosen Broadcast Ownership Rules. 2) Rebuilding Communications Infrastructure in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands 3) Defining the Digital Divide.

The US broadband and media industries are increasingly becoming consolidated, deregulated and freed of accountability, with little attention either from policymakers or the media. While Mexico is moving forward -- having recently developed new institutions and regulations intended to promote competition and accountability in telecommunications and media, the US is moving backwards. Competition in broadband and media in the US is vanishing as a result of decisions, big and small, by the Trump Administration. 

The Charles Benton Early Career Scholar Committee has awarded Burcu Baykurt the 2019 TPRC Charles Benton Early Career Scholar Award Winner and Jacob Manlove the runner up. Burcu Baykurt wrote (Dis)connecting the Digital City which examines how the connectivity infrastructures of the digital city are laid over uneven terrains and the ways residents react to those changes. Assessing the Need for a Measure of Broadband Adoption Inequality, written by Jacob Manlove, proposes the use of the absolute value index which distinguishes between no mobile use, mobile only, fixed only,

Two publications released this week have us thinking about the impact the digital divide has on education, schools, and students. In many schools around the country, teachers might be able to take for granted that their students have access to the internet outside of school. Unfortunately, for too many students, that just isn't true. The resulting "Homework Gap" is expanding inequity. 

Seventy-five years ago, in October 1944, my grandfather, William Benton, delivered a clarion call in the pages of Forbes magazine by articulating a forward-looking agenda on behalf of a coalition of business leaders (“the capitalists who cared enough about the system to save it”) to deliver a more peaceful and prosperous American future in the (then-expected) wake of winning World War II. William Benton recognized that American progress rested on the connection between economic opportunity and democracy.