Larry Downes

President-elect Trump has tasked Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk with eliminating federal government waste through the Department of Government Efficiency. We believe there’s a huge opportunity to reduce government spending while improving service—by relocating more federal services online, supported by robust internet connections.

The Federal Communications Commission concluded in 2009 that AM radio was dying: Listeners under 35 were “almost non-existent.” Responding to lagging consumer interest, vehicle manufacturers began leaving AM tuners out of cars—especially in electric vehicles, where the tuners are subject to electromagnetic interference. So why, weeks ago, did the House Commerce Committee overwhelmingly pass a measure requiring manufacturers to include AM radios in all new vehicles?

Two recent Supreme Court decisions produced sweeping changes to how regulation works in the United States, shifting power from agencies to the courts. Investment will now take place against the backdrop of the “judicial veto,” where a wide range of potential litigants and sympathetic judges will decide which regulations actually go into effect, and when. According to conventional wisdom, scaling back the regulatory state will help businesses. However, the court’s rulings will suppress business investment in three unintended ways.

As businesses and governments race to make sense of the impacts of new, powerful AI systems, governments around the world are jostling to take the lead on regulation. Business leaders should be focused on who is likely to win this race, more so than the questions of how or even when AI will be regulated.

At the Federal Communications Commission’s request, nearly 800 communications companies and trade groups signed the “Keep Americans Connected” pledge. The signatories agreed not to terminate service to any residential or small business customer, and to waive any late fees incurred, due to economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

When it comes to the Internet, the COVID-19 crisis is teaching us that we’re so much better off than we could have been, but not as good as we need to be. COVID-19 is a stress test for many systems in the United States, most critically in our health, government, education, media, retail and financial services sectors. All of them are now depending more than ever on the Internet to serve their users. The current health crisis will likely peak some time this year, but our intensified reliance on digital technology will not.

The digital divide is not exclusively or even most significantly a rural problem. Three times as many households in urban areas remain unconnected as in rural areas. And regardless of geography, access isn’t the main reason these homes are without Internet service. The vast majority of US homes without broadband service could have it today, but they don’t want it.

A group of senior communications experts, working with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, released its “Global Broadband Plan for Refugee Inclusion.” The detailed report calls for “all refugees, and the communities that host them, to have access to available, affordable and usable mobile and internet connectivity.” At first glance, the idea of devoting scarce resources to ensuring refugees can go online may sound misguided.

We sympathize with the increased anxiety over the poor data hygiene practices of leading tech platforms. And we agree that legislation clarifying the duties of those who collect and use personal information is important, as is delineating enforcement responsibilities among agencies and jurisdictions. We’re concerned, however, by the passionate but incomplete argument that it’s time to jettison decades of antitrust policy that limits the government to intervening only when market concentration has, or could, cause higher prices for consumers.

In 2010, Google rocked the $60 billion broadband industry by announcing plans to deploy fiber-based home internet service, offering connections up to a gigabit per second — 100 times faster than average speeds at the time. Google Fiber, as the effort was named, entered the access market intending to prove the business case for ultra-high-speed internet.