March 2017

Previously, the Federal Communications Commission affirmed that it sought to promote the deployment of 4G LTE in all areas where it would not be offered by the private sector in the absence of universal service support. To identify those geographical areas potentially eligible for such support, the FCC decided to use 4G LTE deployment at a minimum advertised download speed benchmark of at least 5 Mbps, based on service providers’ Form 477 filings. The FCC concluded that any census block not fully covered by unsubsidized 4G LTE of at least 5 Mbps advertised download speed will encompass areas that are eligible for support in the Mobility Fund II auction. While the FCC directed its Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) and the Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) to make an initial determination of eligible areas by census block based on the Form 477 filings, it also stated its intention to “provide a robust process for interested parties to challenge our list of presumptively eligible areas for MF-II support.”

To aid interested parties, and to provide additional information about the geographical areas eligible for Mobility Fund II support, the WCB and WTB propose to release minimum advertised or expected 4G LTE speed data included in the December 31, 2015, and June 30, 2016 Form 477 filings (and any subsequent Form 477 filings) to facilitate Mobility Fund II analysis. Disclosure of the minimum advertised or expected speeds associated with service providers’ 4G LTE coverage submitted in their Form 477 filings will enable a transparent process for challenges, and final determinations of areas eligible for Mobility Fund II support. Strong public interest benefits support disclosing the minimum advertised or expected 4G LTE speeds.

Congress continues to have significant concerns around how to design an infrastructure program to ensure that any dollars designated for broadband are spent wisely. Fortunately, there is a solution. We support an approach that places responsibility on the Federal Communications Commission to disperse any new broadband dollars through its Connect America Fund (CAF) and Mobility Fund (MF) programs. These two programs, as further refined in two orders adopted by the FCC in Feb 2017, provide clear evidence that the FCC has the expertise and the tools to manage a data-driven process that will ensure that any incremental broadband funding is directed where broadband does not currently exist and is needed the most.

To be clear, current CAF II and MF II dollars are unlikely to be sufficient to complete the job of getting broadband deployment to all these remote areas. By our estimate, the $198M/year that will be made available through the CAF II auction is only 21% of the FCC’s own calculated deployment costs for all eligible areas. To address this, bids will be scored and ranked, regardless of geography, from lowest to highest with support awarded to winning projects until funding is exhausted. And we fully expect the budget to run out before all eligible areas are funded. But these programs are the best way to use available dollars and, importantly, these programs leverage private investment to the maximum extent possible by awarding funds to the bidder willing to get the job done at the lowest cost. It’s a true public-private partnership.

Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway likes to say that the Trump administration and the media share “joint custody” of the country, as if the president and the press are a divorced couple. That might be an apt comparison (Jon Stewart also has likened Trump and the media to ex-lovers), but the White House seems totally uninterested in an amicable split. Witness White House press secretary Sean Spicer's reprimand of American Urban Radio correspondent April Ryan on Tuesday (“please stop shaking your head"), which offended many reporters, and his characterization over the weekend of Politico's Tara Palmeri as “an idiot with no real sources,” which offended even Breitbart News.

. Spicer's characterization of Palmeri as an “idiot” is particularly telling because he wrote it in an email to Breitbart. He didn't just blurt it out, in other words; he typed it, had a chance to reconsider — before anyone else would have read the insult — yet decided to leave it in his message and hit “send” anyway. Credit the White House with being authentic in this department, but remember that President Trump has bragged about being able to fake cordiality. His go-to explanation, when asked about his history of hobnobbing with — and donating money to — Democratic politicians is that he was not always genuine. President Trump is not playing the same game with the media, and voters have noticed. In a Monmouth University poll, 81 percent of respondents said President Trump has a worse relationship with the press than previous presidents did. Here's the survey result that President Trump should worry about: 58 percent said his bad relationship with the media has hurt his image.

We combine nine previously proposed measures to construct an index of political polarization among US adults. We find that the growth in polarization in recent years is largest for the demographic groups least likely to use the internet and social media. For example, our overall index and eight of the nine individual measures show greater increases for those older than 75 than for those aged 18–39. These facts argue against the hypothesis that the internet is a primary driver of rising political polarization.