May 2015

There are two stories people are trying to tell right now about the future of the Internet. One is that we need some basic rules to make sure the Web remains open and free so that companies that depend on the Internet can grow. The other is that strict rules will discourage Internet providers from making the investments that will enhance the network for everybody. Whichever narrative wins out will go a long way toward determining what your online experience will look like in the years to come.

Although the Federal Communications Commission approved a historic set of network neutrality regulations in February, Internet providers are trying to overturn those rules in court. And if they can convince judges that the rules will cause irreparable damage to their business, the Internet providers will get a major leg up on the FCC. To bolster that case, some economists are turning to historical data about what the industry spent on infrastructure over the last couple decades. The result is a game of correlation, with one side trying to prove that regulation had little effect on investment and the other side trying to prove that it did. If you boil it down, it's a disagreement over the Internet's basic origin story. And both sides are essentially accusing each other of historical revisionism. How aggressively we regulate Internet providers will be shaped by this ideological battle. As more of our media and communications move to the Web, expect these themes to come up again and again.

Some major broadcasters are telling the Federal Communications Commission that they will need the commission to set a spectrum-clearing target before the incentive auction in order to better decide whether or not to participate. According to an ex parte filing with the FCC, representatives of Fox, Ion, Tribune and Univision met with FCC officials to make the point that if the FCC wants to maximize broadcasters participation in the auction -- it does -- it should set a target of 126 MHz (on the high end of the FCC's estimation of what it could clear) and do so before the deadline for applications for the auction, which would mean by the end of 2015 -- the auction is targeted for early 2016. The more spectrum the FCC tries to get, the more money it will have to pay broadcasters to get it. The groups collectively represent stations that amount to more than 5 billion MHz pops of broadcast spectrum (the FCC values spectrum using the "per pop" measure, a calculation based on the population reached and value of the spectrum), including in markets where wireless demand is high.

The timing and technology are right to bring the power of digital sensing to the poor to improve health, safety and education. That is the animating assumption behind a new project announced on May 19. The initiative is led by Unicef and ARM, the British chip designer whose microprocessors power most smartphones and tablets. They are being joined by Frog, the San Francisco-based design firm, along with people described as coaches and advisers from companies and organizations including Google, Orange, Singularity University, the Red Cross and the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The long-term ambition is to jump start an industrial ecosystem for sensing and data technology that serves the needs of mothers and children in developing nations. The project, called Wearables for Good, is beginning with a contest to generate ideas. Applications can be submitted online on the project’s website until August 4. Two winners will be selected in the fall 2015. Each will receive $15,000, and assistance and advice from ARM, Frog and others on translating their ideas into a product and perhaps a company. The online application lists the required characteristics for device ideas. They should be, according to the form, “cost-effective, rugged and durable, low-power and scalable.” The form offers no price limits, but it is safe to assume the project is looking for devices priced far less than an Apple Watch or a Fitbit device.

Code.org, the non-profit organization that has gotten children as young as five years old to try computer coding, has joined with the College Board to try to expand computer education in US public schools, particularly to girls and minorities. Seattle (WA)-based Code.org, founded by two tech entrepreneurs, and the College Board, the New York-based non-profit that administers the SAT and Advanced Placement tests, are offering to help 35 of the country’s largest school districts teach new computer science classes. Too many students, particularly girls and teens of color, attend high schools that do not teach computer science, or they are not encouraged to take those classes if they are offered, said Hadi Partovi, a co-founder of Code.org.

Of the students in the high school class of 2014 who took the PSAT, more than 165,000 girls showed the capacity to learn computer science but just 2.5 percent enrolled in the AP Computer Science course and exam, according to the College Board. Thirty-three thousand African American and Hispanic students also showed aptitude for computer science, but just 4.7 percent took the AP course. To try to broaden the appeal of computer science, Code.org has designed a new AP Computer Science Principles class for the College Board that will be piloted in the fall and offered nationwide in 2016.