May 2019

FCC Approves First Wave of Funding From Connect America Fund Auction

The Federal Communications Commission authorized nearly $111.6 million in funding over the next decade to expand broadband to 37,148 unserved rural homes and businesses in 12 states representing the first wave of support from the Connect America Fund Phase II auction. Providers will begin receiving funding in May 2019. In total, the auction allocated $1.488 billion in support to expand broadband to more than 700,000 unserved rural homes and small businesses over the next 10 years.

Meteorologists Worry 5G Expansion Could Interfere With Weather Forecasts

The Trump Administration’s swift-moving plan to promote 5G networks is running into resistance from the weather-forecasting community. The dispute centers around ultrahigh radio frequencies that the Federal Communications Commission recently auctioned off for use in the country’s next-generation wireless networks.

Disney to Buy Comcast’s Hulu Stake and Take Full Control of Streaming Service

The Walt Disney Company has agreed to acquire Comcast’s one-third stake in Hulu and to take full control of the streaming service. The sale price would be at least $5.8 billion and could climb once an independent party assesses Hulu’s fair market value. The potential payout is based on Hulu’s current $27.5 billion valuation (in April 2019, it was valued at $15.8 billion). Hulu had 28 million subscribers at the end of April, a 12 percent jump since the end of last year. Although it is expected to lose more than $1.5 billion in 2019, Robert A.

Comparing the Presentation of News Information over Time and Across Media Platforms

This report presents a quantitative assessment of how the presentation of news has changed over the past 30 years and how it varies across platforms.

On the regional impact of broadband on productivity: The case of Brazil

This paper analyses the incidence of broadband on regional productivity in Brazil, intending to find out if the economic impact is uniform across all territories of the country. The possibility of performing a regional approach to test the effect of broadband on productivity in an emerging country represents a novelty for the literature. Results suggest that the impact of broadband on productivity is positive although not uniform across regions. On the one hand, it seems to depend on connection quality and network effects.