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March 2017

AT&T broadband deployment skipped low-income Dayton (OH) neighborhoods

Earlier in Feb the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and Connect Your Community, a Cleveland (OH) based organization, published a report indicating that AT&T had “systematically discriminated against lower income Cleveland neighborhoods in its deployment of home internet and video technologies over the last decade.” The analysis shows that AT&T has failed to upgrade its network in low income neighborhoods, including most of the City of Dayton, while deploying a high-speed fiber based network in wealthier suburban areas.

“The company has upgraded areas around the City to its mainstream technology (Fiber to the Node, VDSL) but has failed to do that in Dayton, leaving those neighborhoods with an older, much slower technology (ADSL-2),” said Ellis Jacobs, senior attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. According to Jacobs, “this has all the appearances of ‘digital redlining,’ discrimination against residents of lower income urban neighborhoods in the type of infrastructure AT&T installs and the type of broadband service it offers. High-speed internet is a critical modern day utility. Without it, residents and businesses are at a distinct disadvantage.”

Community Broadband Ban Bill Ties the Hands of MO Communities

It’s 2017 and a lot of Missouri residents are still tortured by the lack of access to basic broadband service, and if a community broadband ban bill becomes state law it will remain that way for years to come. SB 186 is essentially a copy of 2016’s community broadband ban that eventually died in the legislature. Just like in 2016, many of the sponsors and promoters of the latest attempt to impose a municipal broadband ban have close ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and receive copious amounts of money from Missouri’s largest telecommunication companies. Some even win awards from the state’s biggest telecom lobbyists.

Lawmakers call for renewed national broadband map as Trump funds NTIA

Reps from both sides of the aisle renewed calls to update the National Broadband Map, which was initially created by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Federal Communications Commission but has languished since 2014 due to lack of funding. "We must accurately collect and aggregate data to update the National Broadband Map," said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) druing a hearing. The hearing covered legislation tied to President Trump’s plans to increase spending on the nation’s core infrastructure, and legislators generally argued that broadband networks should be expanded to unserved and underserved areas in the United States as part of that effort.

NTIA first released its national broadband map and broadband adoption survey results in 2011. Version 1.0 of the map, designed by Computech, showed broadband availability across the country, including the relative dearth of broadband access in rural areas. However, as noted on the map’s website, updates to the map stopped on June 30, 2014. “The Commission sought funding for FY 2016 to maintain and update the National Broadband Map, but this request was not granted,” the site stated. The map was updated with data from the NTIA’s State Broadband Initiative, and was created by the NTIA and the FCC. Interestingly, the NTIA largely managed to avoid the cost-cutting knife of President Trump’s federal budget.

Is This Data’s One-Rate Moment?

[Commentary] The Holy Grail in cellular wireless broadband is a perfect substitute for fixed, wireline broadband. It’s already a substitute for some uses, meaning competition analysis should take into account this imperfect competition for policymaking purposes. But the technologies are not yet substitutes for most households. Verizon’s recent (re-)introduction of its unlimited data plan, however, suggests that day may be in sight. While history never provides a perfect analogy, let’s take a step back in time to the days of in-country roaming and long-distance wireless charges. (Like cavemen, we were in the 1990s!)
[Scott Wallsten is President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute.]

A President’s Credibility

[Commentary] If President Donald Trump announces that North Korea launched a missile that landed within 100 miles of Hawaii, would most Americans believe him? Would the rest of the world? We’re not sure, which speaks to the damage that President Trump is doing to his Presidency with his seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods.

The latest example is President Trump’s refusal to back off his tweet of three weeks ago that he had “found out that [Barack] Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory” on Election Day. He has offered no evidence for his claim, and a parade of intelligence officials, senior Republicans and Democrats have since said they have seen no such evidence. Two months into his Presidency, Gallup has President Trump’s approval rating at 39%. No doubt President Trump considers that fake news, but if he doesn’t show more respect for the truth most Americans may conclude he’s a fake President.

"Deconstruction"

[Commentary] It’s a challenge to pick the worst of the furnace-hot verbiage spewing forth from the new Administration; there is just so much to choose from. But to me, one completely frightening statement stands out. It is “deconstructing the administrative state” as the stated purpose of the Trump team. If this statement doesn’t motivate citizens to action, what will? Translated into everyday English, the President, Steve Bannon, and their billionaire cabinet of corporate minions are telling us that their goal is to axe as much government as possible—except, of course, for the already-bloated military-industrial complex which would receive $54 billion more to entrench itself. A seemingly soothing “deconstruction” bromide cannot mask that the destruction of government as we have known it for more than a century is their real objective.

[In 2012, former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps joined Common Cause to lead its Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.]

Digital divide persists even as lower-income Americans make gains in tech adoption

This is the first in a series of posts about how different demographic groups in the US have fared in the digital age.

Roughly three-in-ten adults with household incomes below $30,000 a year don’t own a smartphone. Nearly half don’t have home broadband services or a traditional computer. And a majority of lower-income Americans are not tablet owners. By comparison, many of these devices are nearly ubiquitous among adults from households earning $100,000 or more a year. Higher-income Americans are also more likely to have multiple devices that enable them to go online.

Two-thirds of adults living in high-earning households have home broadband services, a smartphone, a desktop or laptop computer and a tablet, compared with 17% of those living in low-income households. And with fewer options for online access at their disposal, many lower-income Americans are relying more on smartphones. In 2016, one-fifth of adults living in households earning less than $30,000 a year were “smartphone-only” internet users – meaning they owned a smartphone but did not have broadband internet at home. This represents an increase from 12% in 2013. In contrast, only 4% of those living in households earning $100,000 or more fell into this category in either year.

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