Lauren Frayer

A mapping analysis of Federal Communications Commission broadband availability data, conducted by Connect Your Community and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, strongly suggests that AT&T has systematically discriminated against lower-income Cleveland (OH) neighborhoods in its deployment of home Internet and video technologies over the past decade. Our analysis, based on newly released FCC Form 477 Census block data for June 2016, provides clear evidence that AT&T has withheld fiber-enhanced broadband improvements from most Cleveland neighborhoods with high poverty rates.

This analysis is part of a six-month effort that began when CYC and NDIA learned that residents of many Cleveland neighborhoods were being declared ineligible for AT&T’s “Access” discount rate program, solely because they couldn’t get AT&T connections at the 3 mbps download speed that was then the program’s minimum requirement. After analyzing previous FCC Form 477 data releases, along with City construction permits and other information, we’ve come to believe that the ultra-slow AT&T Internet speeds available to those Access applicants reflect a larger problem: AT&T’s failure to invest to upgrade most of its Cleveland network to the company’s mainstream technology.

Entercom, the PA-based radio broadcasting company that owned KDND-FM (107.9 The End), will settle with a media watchdog group that had threatened to appeal the licenses of its other Sacramento stations. 107.9 The End was embroiled in controversy when the station sponsored a contest in 2007 called, “Hold Your Wee for a Wii,” resulting in the death of Jennifer Lea Strange, 28, from water intoxication. Her family eventually won a $16.6 million award during a jury trial, and media watchdogs petitioned the Federal Communications Commission seeking to deny the station’s license renewal. In Feb, Entercom announced it would voluntarily surrender the radio station’s license as part of a planned merger with CBS Corp.’s CBS Radio.

The Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Ajit Pai has struck a blow for cultural programming. The FCC has denied a complaint by Beasley Broadcast Group against a Tampa (FL) noncommercial low-power FM station for airing an all-music lineup when it promised a range of educational and cultural programming when it applied for the license. But the FCC did find it had aired one ad and the station's owner, Hispanic Arts, agreed in a consent decree to pay a $2,000 fine.

Beasley, which owns seven stations in Tampa, most of them all-music formats, alleged the licensee had violated the terms of its license and the FCC should review its status. In its construction permit for the station, WVVF-LP, filed in November 2013, Hispanic Arts had contended that its mission was "promoting the rich history and culture of Hispanics in the Tampa Bay area" through a variety of broadcast programs, including poetry, cultural programs, news and weather, live broadcasts of local events, community calendar, history, interviews politics, discussion, and music programming."

Apparently, federal investigators and computer scientists continue to examine whether there was a computer server connection between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank. Questions about the possible connection were widely dismissed four months ago. But the FBI's investigation remains open, apparently, and is in the hands of the FBI's counterintelligence team -- the same one looking into Russia's suspected interference in the 2016 election.

One US official said investigators find the server relationship "odd" and are not ignoring it. But the official said there is still more work for the FBI to do. Investigators have not yet determined whether a connection would be significant. The server issue surfaced again this weekend, mentioned in a Breitbart article that, according to a White House official, sparked President Trump's series of tweets accusing investigators of tapping his phone. CNN is told there was no Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on the server.

On March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow and his CBS news program, “See It Now,” examined Senator Joseph McCarthy's record and anti-communist methods.The program is often remembered for these words: "This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

Republicans are going after the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy rules with both barrels. House Communications Subcommittee Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has introduced her version of a Congressional Review Act resolution invalidating the FCC's Oct 27 order. That follows a similar CRA resolution introduced this week by Sen Jeff Flake (R-AZ). The CRA allows a simple majority of Congress members to invalidate recent regulations, in this case rules approved by the FCC back in October.

Like the Sen Flake resolution, HJRes 86 "provides congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services." “The FCC’s decision last October to unilaterally swipe jurisdiction from the FTC by creating its own privacy rules for ISPs was troubling,"Rep Blackburn said March 9. "The FTC has been our government’s sole online privacy regulator for over twenty years. A dual regulatory approach will only serve to create confusion within the Internet eco-system and harm consumers. This is a bi-partisan issue, as Democrats have also voiced concerns about the potential for consumer harm resulting from the FCC’s overreach. We look forward to rolling back these anti-consumer rules and returning jurisdiction to the FTC.”

Your internet provider can see bits and pieces of almost everything you do online: the sites you visit, the apps you use, the services you connect to. It’s an unpleasant reality for anyone concerned with their privacy, since this information can reveal a whole lot about you. But it’s stayed that way because that’s how internet providers want it — and government regulators feel compelled to listen.

Republican Sens March 8 claimed that network neutrality rules are hurting broadband network investment and urged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to overturn them. Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI) agreed that net neutrality rules harm Internet service provider investment and offered a lengthy analogy to explain why.

Sen Johnson said he wants to cut through the “rhetoric, slogans, and buzzwords,” before saying that enforcing net neutrality rules is like letting too many people use a bridge and ruin people’s lawns. Net neutrality rules, he said, also give adult content the same level of network access as remote medical services. The net neutrality rules passed in 2015 when the FCC was controlled by Democrats prevent fixed and mobile ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet traffic or giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment. Sen Johnson seems to be mostly concerned about an alleged inability of doctors and healthcare organizations to pay for priority over illegal and adult content. Net neutrality protections apply only to lawful Internet content, so the FCC rules do not prevent ISPs from blocking the illegal content that Sen Johnson is worried about.

Just a few weeks after escaping a network neutrality investigation into data cap exemptions, Verizon has decided to let its FiOS mobile video stream on its wireless network without counting against data caps. Customers who have Verizon FiOS TV at home and a Verizon Wireless smartphone plan can watch TV outside their homes without using up the data allotments on limited mobile plans.

Just two months ago, the Federal Communications Commission accused Verizon Wireless of violating net neutrality rules by letting its Go90 video service stream without counting against customers' data caps as the company charged other video providers for the same data cap exemptions (also known as "zero-rating"). But the FCC's new Republican leadership rescinded that claim and ended the investigation last month, giving carriers the green light to expand data cap exemptions. Verizon's Go90 mobile video service hasn't been a smashing success, and 155 employees were reportedly laid off as a result in January. But Verizon has 4.7 million FiOS TV subscribers, and the data cap exemptions might make them more likely to pay for Verizon's mobile service as well.

A senior tech leader under the Obama administration is staying on under President Donald Trump. Haley Van Dyck helped create the US Digital Service, a White House tech trouble-shooting team that tackles large-scale federal IT projects. It was founded as a continuation of the team that helped salvage the HealthCare.gov rollout.

Though Van Dyck resigned toward the end of the Obama administration, she is reportedly re-joining USDS. Until recently, it was unclear whether Trump's administration planned to maintain tech efforts including USDS. Trump's pick for White House chief digital officer, Gerrit Lansing, tweeted support for the group in January, stating: "FYI: USDS is here to stay with the new administration. Period." But less than a month later, Lansing left the White House because he was unable to pass an FBI screening.