Larry Downes

[Commentary] Criticism of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acting director Mick Mulvaney’s recent comments to a banking group has largely focused on his advocating a pay-to-play system for interest groups to access government officials. But similarly disappointing is his wanting to close the CFPB consumer complaint database, on the grounds that he shouldn’t have “to run a Yelp for financial services sponsored by the federal government.” Mulvaney has it backward. We think governments need more, not fewer, Yelp-like services in their arsenals.

[Commentary] Exactly two years ago, I predicted in a lengthy post that eight major Internet policy initiative undertaken by the Federal Communications Commission under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler would fall victim, sooner rather than later, to legal and political challenges. As of last week, all of them have now been sent down the memory hole, including the agency’s radical 2015 decision to “reclassify” broadband Internet as a public utility, subject to a small mountain of rules developed in the 1930’s for the former Bell monopoly.

[Commentary]  As communities across the United States wait to learn how high-speed mobile networks will figure in a long-promised infrastructure plan, some cities are already attracting private investment in next-generation 5G networks. They are doing so by finding new ways to collaborate with network and equipment providers, creating a set of “best practices” that other local governments can follow. Forward-thinking officials at the federal, state and local levels are hurrying to update their processes, looking for new approaches that maximize community value and minimize delay.

[Commentary]  Once again, the [open Internet] rules are being rewritten.  Once again, the pitchforks and torches are in hand.  And once again, the only real and effective solution is being ignored:  legislation from Congress, versions of which have been floating around Capitol Hill for almost a decade. 

[Commentary] As the White House and Congress develop an infrastructure plan promised during the campaign, many, including senators, House members and mayors, are urging that broadband be included. Here are eight simple ground rules we hope Congress will follow in crafting broadband-related infrastructure incentives:
1. Limit and carefully control direct investment funds.
2. Don’t offer ongoing support.
3. Use market mechanisms where possible.
4. Extend “Dig Once/Climb Once” policies on government property.
5. Improve government processes that hinder private investment.
6. Embrace emerging technologies.
7. Address nonfinancial causes of the digital divide.
8. Use the bully pulpit to encourage digital want-nots.

[Blair Levin is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Larry Downes is project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.]

[Commentary] Even as fanatic customers can be counted on to line up outside the Apple store for the latest iPhone, there are still millions of Americans who don’t use a smartphone at all. For that matter, there are still plenty of happy owners of tube televisions, rotary dial telephones, film cameras, fax machines, typewriters and cassette tape players. You might think the holdouts just can’t afford it, which certainly remains an important factor despite programs that subsidize both wired and wireless broadband. But the real holdup is that non-adopters — mostly older, rural and less-educated — just aren’t interested in Internet access, at any price.

As other factors such as price and usability fall, a perceived lack of relevance now dominates. To overcome the inertia of legacy customers, it may be appropriate for governments to step in. The United States has long had programs aimed at making broadband more affordable for lower-income Americans and more accessible for those living in sparsely populated areas.

[Larry Downes is a project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.]

[Commentary] Media outlets across the political spectrum reporting on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s promotion have focused on a single issue—the FCC’s controversial 2015 open Internet rulemaking, which transformed Internet access providers into public utilities. In doing so, they have trivialized the very real and important issues facing the agency and its new Chairman. Much worse than that, they have badly conflated and misreported Pai’s views on network neutrality itself—an almost entirely separate topic. The how and why of this serious reporting failure is the real story here.

Nowhere has Pai indicated hostility to basic net neutrality principles themselves, or disavowed his repeated pledge “to protect them going forward.” Nor has he ever proposed to “kill,” “destroy,” “gut,” “end” or “hate” those protections.

[Larry Downes is the Project Director, Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.]

While Congress continues to pursue legislation, we think there’s direct action the next Federal Communications Commission Chairman can take on day one that would immediately improve the quality of public debate on pending agency action. And that is to hold a second monthly meeting, during which FCC staff gives presentations on major items that might be brought before the Commission at least 60 days before any vote. This second, forward-looking monthly meeting would provide the public--the real party of interest—the information needed to provide meaningful input to the Commission prior to its decision-making. It would also improve the Commissioners’ own ability to respond to policy recommendations on an informed basis.

[Commentary] President-elect Donald Trump’s advisors, along with leading Members of Congress and the agency’s two Republican Commissioners, have already made clear their first priority: to end the agency’s misguided intrusions into the Internet economy, and to reinstate policies that encourage continued private investment. A visionary plan to transform the agency into an effective 21st century enabler of continued digital innovation is sitting on the Commission’s shelf, just waiting to be dusted off.

Ironically, or not, it was written almost twenty years ago, under the direction of William Kennard, appointed to Chair the agency from 1997 to 2001 by Democratic President Bill Clinton. In two drafts prepared in 1999, Kennard’s Office of Plans and Policy laid out the design for a dramatically redesigned Commission. “The FCC as we know it today will be very different both in structure and mission,” the proposal said, transitioning over five years “from an industry regulator to a market facilitator.”

[Larry Downes is an Internet industry analyst and author on business strategies and information technology.]

[Commentary] There are an estimated 1.5 trillion objects around the world that could one day connect to the Internet, everything from simple housewares to automobiles. In the so-called Internet of Things, each of them will be capable of sending and receiving data just as our laptops, smartphones, tablets and TVs do today. But if Internet-connected wearables or smart home devices didn’t make your holiday shopping list this year, it may be because of growing concerns about how careless the makers seem to be with the data their devices collect.

If IoT manufacturers and programmers don’t collectively get their act together, they may find themselves forced to work with a one-size-fits-none set of rules passed and enforced at the leisurely pace of governments. That will surely slow already sluggish consumer adoption, and raise even more anxiety among potential IoT users.

[Larry Downes is a project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy]