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June 2016

The fight over a new Wi-Fi channel is coming to a head

Globalstar’s plan to open a new Wi-Fi channel under its control is nearing the moment of truth after years of regulatory wrangling. The Federal Communications Commission is considering Globalstar’s plan, and a vote could come at any time. News reports suggest it might be close. If Globalstar gets its way, Wi-Fi users in the US will have one more channel, which could reduce congestion and improve performance. But both their mobile devices and the hotspots they use would need firmware upgrades to take advantage of the new frequency, and the channel wouldn’t necessarily be open to everyone.

Globalstar’s plan is to make a fourth channel available in the unlicensed, often crowded 2.4GHz band used for Wi-Fi in the US. While users in some other countries have been enjoying this channel for years, part of it has been set aside in the US as a guard band to protect Globalstar’s satellite frequencies. The company wants to use that guard band for a Wi-Fi-based service instead. Most Wi-Fi devices in the US could be modified to tap into the extra channel.Though that sounds like a generous move, it would come with a catch. Unlike all other Wi-Fi channels, which are open to any FCC-approved device and don’t require pemission, this one would be under Globalstar’s control.

Is winning net neutrality enough to save the Internet?

[Commentary] Network neutrality advocates can add the recent court decision to a recent string of victories on behalf of everyday Internet users. The court ruling is a huge deal — but it doesn’t mean the Internet is safe from threats coming from powerful companies and elsewhere. Winning net neutrality is part of a broader effort to make sure the Internet continues to promote opportunity and free expression for all.

The week of June 13 , 17 public-interest organizations released an Internet policy platform that outlines specific proposals to create a more inclusive, open, secure and affordable Internet. The platform signers are a diverse collection of Internet-rights, racial-justice and consumer-advocacy groups, including 18 Million Rising, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Media Justice, ColorOfChange, Demand Progress, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and Free Press (my organization). We’re calling on all presidential candidates to commit to expanding Internet access and making it more affordable, protecting net neutrality, opposing government-mandated backdoors into communications technologies and promoting competition among Internet service providers. We sent the platform to the chairs of both major parties and to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Saving the Internet is a battle with many fronts. But the unifying objective is to secure everyone’s rights to connect and communicate. As we get ready to vote in November, Internet users should pressure every candidate on the ballot to explain their positions on key technology issues. Protecting our latest win on net neutrality is only a first step.

[Timothy Karr is the senior director of strategy for Free Press.]

DC Circuit Court of Appeals: So deferential it’s “asleep at the switch”

[Commentary] The bulk of the recent DC Circuit Court of Appeals opinion rejecting various challenges to the Federal Communication Commission’s Open Internet order can be summarized succinctly: “we defer.” Following accepted principles of modern administrative law – the law that governs the relationship between Congress, agencies like the FCC, and the courts – in evaluating the FCC’s interpretation of ambiguous statutory definitions the court needed only to consider whether the FCC’s order was minimally reasonable in order to affirm it. And so it did. I would suggest, however, that the DC Circuit followed these principles to a fault.

The judges focused so narrowly on individual issues, accepting the “reasons” offered by the commission to support the Open Internet order without any scrutiny, that they missed the underlying incoherency and lack of reasoning in the order. Dissenting, Judge Williams argued that parts of the order were so self-contradictory that commission staff must have been “asleep at the switch.” This is the core difference between the DC Circuit’s majority and dissenting views: whether it is sufficient that the agency supplied “reasons” in order to receive the benefit of deference, or whether those reasons must also have been arrived at through a reasonable decision-making process. If we accept the majority view, that the court need not inquire into the sufficiency of the agency’s decision-making process in order to receive the benefit of deference, then courts, too, may also be asleep at the switch.

[Gus Hurtwitz is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law

Strengthening and Celebrating America’s Capacity for Innovation

Throughout the week of June 20, we’ll be taking stock of America’s innovative progress over the last seven-and-a-half years and announcing new steps we’re taking to build on those efforts -- including supporting advanced manufacturing and making, laying the groundwork for smart and connected cities, and expanding inclusive entrepreneurship across the United States. That's what President Barack Obama will be discussing at the third annual SelectUSA Summit.

He'll be joining 2,400 global business leaders representing more than 70 markets to discuss the role that innovation and smart trade policies like the Trans-Pacific Partnership play in attracting investment to the United States and supporting good American jobs. The President will bookend the week with a sit-down with Facebook’s Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and three global entrepreneurs on the last day of the seventh annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit on June 24 -- an event that will showcase the importance of empowering global entrepreneurs to make communities around the world more economically prosperous and secure.

Birth Control via App Finds Footing Under Political Radar

A quiet shift is taking place in how women obtain birth control. A growing assortment of new apps and websites now make it possible to get prescription contraceptives without going to the doctor. The development has potential to be more than just a convenience for women already on birth control. Public health experts hope it will encourage more to start, or restart, using contraception and help reduce the country’s stubbornly high rate of unintended pregnancies, as well as the rate of abortions. And as apps and websites, rather than legislative proposals or taxpayer-funded programs, the new services have so far sprung up beneath the political radar and grown through word of mouth, with little of the furor that has come to be expected in issues involving reproductive health.

Net Inclusion 2016: Addressing the Digital Divide From Miami to Kansas City

Thirty-four million, a number that's been running through my head ever since it was mentioned by Federal Communications Commission staffer Gigi Sohn in her keynote speech at the first annual Net Inclusion Summit. As you read this, there are 34 million Americans who can’t access this blog even if they wanted to. These Americans lack access to something that has quickly become a necessity in our country: high-speed Internet. Without it, they may be unable to access their government benefits or be able to apply for a job. So many of us are fascinated by how quickly technology is moving and by all of the ways the Internet has made our lives easier, but we continue to forget those who are being left behind. The faster technology progresses, the harder it will be for 34 million of us to catch up.

Sixth Interim Progress Report on the Ten-Year Plan and Timetable

NTIA submits this Sixth Interim Progress Report to describe progress toward achieving the Administration’s directive to identify and make available 500 megahertz of spectrum for licensed and unlicensed wireless broadband services within ten years, while assuring the protection of vital government operations that rely on spectrum.

This report covers October 1, 2014 through September 30, 2015 (FY15). As of September 2015, NTIA and the FCC had made significant progress toward the goal by making a total of 245 megahertz of spectrum available for wireless broadband technologies, including 165 megahertz during FY15. This spectrum is comprised of 140 megahertz from federal or shared bands and 105 megahertz from non-federal bands. Accomplishments to date are a result of the continued collaboration between NTIA, the FCC, the federal agencies, industry, and other stakeholders.

The Inventors of the Internet Are Trying to Build a Truly Permanent Web

If you wanted to write a history of the Internet, one of the first things you would do is dig into the e-mail archives of Vint Cerf. In 1973, he co-created the protocols that Internet servers use to communicate with each other without the need for any kind of centralized authority or control. He has spent the decades since shaping the Internet’s development, most recently as Google’s “chief Internet evangelist.” Thankfully, Cerf says he has archived about 40 years of old e-mail—a first-hand history of the Internet stretching back almost as far as the Internet itself. But you’d also have a pretty big problem: a whole lot of that e-mail you just wouldn’t be able to open. The programs Cerf used to write those e-mails, and the formats in which they’re stored, just don’t work on any current computer you’d likely be using to try to read them.

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