Lauren Frayer

Today’s action by the Ninth Circuit is a big win for American consumers. Now that the court’s prior decision is no longer effective, it will be easier for the Federal Trade Commission to protect consumers’ online privacy. The court’s action also strengthens the case for the Federal Communications Commission to reverse its 2015 Title II Order and restore the FTC’s jurisdiction over broadband providers’ privacy and data security practices. Indeed, it moves us one step closer to having the consistent and comprehensive framework for digital privacy that the American people deserve.

Sens Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) are asking the Federal Communications Commission for information about the agency’s claim that it had been the target of cyberattacks after being criticized by late night comedian John Oliver on May 7. The two Sens sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai with a list of questions about the FCC’s claim that its comment filing system had been hit with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

“DDoS attacks against federal agencies are serious — and doubly so if the attack may have prevented Americans from being able to weigh in on your proposal to roll back net neutrality protections,” they wrote. “Any potentially hostile cyber activities that prevent Americans from being able to participate in a fair and transparent process must be treated as a serious issue.”

Over the past few decades, an increased number of social-issue documentary film teams have endeavored to fuel policy shifts in the United States – that is, to influence legislation, regulation, enforcement and the views of policymakers related to key social issues on the federal, state and local levels. Indeed, Capitol Hill screenings in Washington (DC) have become regular rites of passage. But while anecdotal stories of Hill screenings abound, a deeper strategic and tactical understanding about how social-issue documentary films contribute to policy is harder to ascertain. Documentary filmmakers and policymakers operate in different worlds with distinct agendas and ways of doing business. And yet, they are often able to come together in mutually beneficial ways.

When Movies Come to Washington provides inside perspectives from policymakers, filmmakers and advocacy leaders who have successfully contributed to shifting or creating policy agendas with the help of documentary films. The report offers documentary film teams tips for engagement with the federal public policy arena. While social-issue documentary filmmakers certainly don’t need to transform themselves into finely-tuned policy experts, understanding the basics and some insider tips can make the difference in a policy strategy’s effectiveness. It may also provide filmmakers with the ability to fully vet impact strategy teams who may work alongside them. Additionally, a fuller understanding of the policymaking process can widen opportunities for engagement beyond passing laws alone – to the processes by which those laws are carried out and impact the lives of people outside Washington.

Deutsche Bank Analyst Matthew Niknam listed seven key benefits to the Comcast-Charter Communications partnership, which calls for the two companies to share wireless technology and best practices, as well as control each other’s major M&A endeavors in the wireless industry. Niknam then listed seven “opportunities” rendered by the deal:

1. It offers national scale across a fiber-dense network footprint covering 80% of the US
2. The two companies will share network technology, software, product development and operational investments and expertise
3. Each will dramatically increase its service footprint, allowing customers to reach across each other’s Wi-Fi networks, as well as any LTE or 5G network infrastructure built in the future
4. The deal offers collaboration on spectrum procurement and any future network design and buildout
5. It will enable both companies to better serve the business market with wireless services
6. It will provide better leverage and scale for procurement from vendors
7. It will extend the amount of retail service locations both companies can offer

The roughly 100-day frenzy of deregulation at the Federal Communications Commission marks a bright spot for the Trump Administration, which has been hampered in other areas like repealing Obamacare. And FCC Chairman Ajit Pai shows no signs of slowing down, teeing up a takedown of the signature FCC achievement of the Obama years: network neutrality rules designed to ensure internet service providers treat all web traffic equally.

With the days dwindling down to the Federal Communications Commission's May 18 planned vote on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to roll back Title II classification of Internet service providers, Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) joined a dozen other Democratic lawmakers in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai telling him not to "gut" net neutrality protections. Sen Markey has been a leader in the pushback on modifying/unwinding the FCC's Open Internet order, vowing to fight the effort on all fronts.

In the letter, the lawmakers issue with both rolling back Title II and the suggestion—which sources said was raised in meetings between Chairman Pai and ISPs—that the Federal Trade Commission could enforce voluntary openness pledges along the lines of the Open Internet order rules against blocking and throttling and anticompetitive paid prioritization. They said since a court had upheld the FCC's reclassification, the issue was settled and should remain so. As to voluntary guidelines, they said those do not provide the certainty that innovators and "anyone else" can get access to viewers and customers and leaves ISPs as the gatekeepers.

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai exudes charm even as he operates an aggressive deregulatory weed wacker that favors arcane administrative safeguards for phone companies over other matters, such as the long past due reduction in extortionate calling rates paid by prison inmates. Paradoxically, the chairman has more compassion for procedural due process rights of telephone companies than for families seeking a fair price for telephone calls priced in an unquestionably noncompetitive marketplace. The chairman instructed his legal staff not to show up at a court hearing on the matter and has announced no plans for finding ways to solve the rip-off in a legally proper manner.

Chairman Pai has undertaken an effective charm offensive promising greater transparency, reliance on facts and application of sound economic principles. Who could quibble with that? But anyone looking at the output of the Pai offensive can see a remarkable paradox. The chairman has clear deregulatory goals and will shape the evidence, statistics and economics to achieve the desired result.

[Rob Frieden holds the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications and Law at Penn State University.]

Maybe you've heard: Charter Communications is teaming up with Comcast. The two cable companies are working together to protect their nascent cellphone businesses from huge, national providers — such as Verizon and AT&T — by largely refraining from going after each other. Under the deal, Comcast and Charter have temporarily agreed not to take actions that could compromise each other's new offerings, such as selling mobile-phone service to consumers outside their respective cable footprints or trying to buy up existing cellphone carriers such as Sprint or T-Mobile.

Essentially, it's a deal by cable giants to shield their early investments in an industry they're just beginning to explore. But this detente, while it may seem like a small announcement, has some important implications for cellphone service, television and online media. Here's why it's such a big deal.

CTIA released its Annual Wireless Industry Survey, which found Americans used a record 13.72 trillion megabytes (MBs) of mobile data in 2016, an increase of over 4 trillion MBs over 2015 and 35 times the volume of traffic in 2010. The amount of data traffic sent over wireless networks in 2016 -13.72 trillion MBs - is the equivalent of 1.58 million years of streaming HD videos.

Some other key findings:

• Data-intensive mobile devices continue to rise: Heavy traffic-generating devices, smartphones and wireless-enabled tablets and laptops, now total 309.8 million of the 395.9 million devices on carrier networks – a 238% increase since 2010.
• There are more wireless devices than Americans: With 395.9 million total active devices in the US, adoption is now equal to 120.6% of the US population, or more than 1.2 wireless devices per American.
• Industry committed to building world-leading networks: A record 308,334 cells sites were in operation in 2016, representing a 57% growth over the last decade, thanks to over $26 billion invested in 2016 alone.

Stakeholders know that because small cells will have shorter range, operators will need a dense fiber network to support them. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam offered a sense of just how dense that network will need to be.

Verizon small cells and densification efforts are driving the deployment of 1700-strand fiber in Boston (MA), where the company is undertaking a major network upgrade, McAdam said. In comparison, he said, the company deployed six-strand fiber when it began deploying its FiOS landline broadband and internet service in the early 2000s. Verizon worked closely with its supplier Corning to get 1700 fiber strands in a single sheath, McAdam said, also noting that the company recently placed a $300 million order with another fiber supplier Prysmian. “The largest fiber network in the country will be wireless” and will be operated by Verizon to provide backhaul and other types of connectivity, said McAdam.