Lauren Frayer

As the Federal Communications Commission continues to address broadband infrastructure and access, Americans have mixed views on two policies designed to encourage broadband adoption. A substantial majority of the public (70%) believes local governments should be able to build their own broadband networks if existing services in the area are either too expensive or not good enough, according to the survey, conducted March 13-27. Just 27% of US adults say these so-called municipal broadband networks should not be allowed. (A number of state laws currently prevent cities from building their own high-speed networks, and several U.S. senators recently introduced a bill that would ban these restrictions.)

At the same time, fewer than half of Americans (44%) think the government should provide subsidies to help lower-income Americans pay for high-speed internet at home. A larger share (54%) says high-speed home internet service is affordable enough that nearly every household should be able to buy service on its own.

These policy debates are occurring at a time when roughly nine-in-ten Americans describe high-speed internet service as either essential (49%) or important but not essential (41%). Only about one-in-ten Americans say that high-speed internet access is either not too important (6%) or not important at all (3%).

With discussion of a potential infrastructure package at some point in the Trump Administration that many rightfully hope will include rural broadband, it is worth examining previous attempts to spur rural broadband service, revisiting the basic policies used to encourage broadband deployment in those geographies where the economics do not support competitive delivery, and distilling guidance for any new attempts at the same.

Congress should take the opportunity to support a major infrastructure package by designating a portion of the funds for broadband deployment to rural and lessdensely populated areas. But to do this effectively, any program should be designed to follow the principles articulated in this report. This report first lays out an overview of infrastructure policy more generally, then examines how those high-level principles should apply in the broadband context. Next, it discusses existing rural broadband programs with an eye toward their successes and shortcomings. It then discusses some available policy tools on the table for a future push for rural broadband deployment before offering concluding principles that should guide any future broadband infrastructure legislation.

Beyond communication, smartphones have become indispensable for everything from banking to transportation in the decade since the launch of the iPhone. Through mobile broadband or Wi-Fi, smartphones deliver internet access that is increasingly important in today’s economy. The devices can also improve healthcare outcomes by reminding patients of their appointments and treatments. Given the ability of smartphones to connect users to government services, lawmakers should consider making them more widely available.

Media companies and their advertisers are shortchanged $8 billion a year because of scams, or more than the estimated combined revenue of Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures and MGM Studios. Advertisers think they're getting the desired views and clicks. But companies taking closer looks are finding unwelcome results. Websites where ads appear are visited by robots — computers hacked to impersonate real browsing behaviors. Others traffic in content people crave but upstanding businesses wouldn’t want to support, such as bootlegged movies or terrorist propaganda.

The set-up is siphoning potential revenue from legitimate media companies to shady ones. And it’s enabling hucksters to profit in fake newswriting and piracy thanks to ad views. Stopping money from flowing to their operations has become a new priority for advertisers. Their results are difficult to measure, but early signs are encouraging.

Several Sens pressed the Trump Administration for details after reports that US officials tried to get Twitter to unmask an anonymous account that published tweets critical of President Donald Trump. “I am gravely alarmed by the summons that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) transmitted to Twitter on March 14, 2017, regarding the Twitter account @ALT_USCIS," Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote in a letter to federal officials. "Not only was the summons blatantly inconsistent with the cited investigatory authority … it appeared to be a distributing threat to free speech and whistleblower protections,” he added.

Sens Mike Lee (R-UT) and Cory Gardner (R-CO) sent a separate letter to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly inquiring about the administration’s alleged attempts to gain information on the anonymous Twitter.

An investigation of Google has found it systematically pays female employees less than their male counterparts, US Department of Labor officials said, a claim that adds to allegations of gender bias in Silicon Valley.

The Labor Department found the gender-pay gap during a routine probe into whether Google, a federal contractor, is complying with laws that prohibit contractors from discriminating against applicants or employees. The department is suing Google to compel the company to disclose more compensation data for its investigation. At a procedural hearing before a federal administrative law judge in San Francisco, Labor Department Regional Director Janette Wipper said the agency “found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce” at Google.

President Donald J. Trump announced his intent to nominate key additions to his Administration:

• Vishal J. Amin of Michigan to be Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in the Executive Office of the President. Mr. Amin is currently Senior Counsel on the House Judiciary Committee. Earlier in his career, he served in the Administration of President George W. Bush at the White House, as Associate Director for Domestic Policy, and at the U.S. Department of Commerce, as Special Assistant and Associate Director for Policy in the Office of the Secretary. He received his bachelor's degree in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University and his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis.
• Neomi Rao of Washington, D.C. to be the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget. Ms. Rao is a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she founded and directs the Center for the Study of the Administrative State. Her research and teaching focuses on constitutional and administrative law. Currently a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, Ms. Rao has previously served in all three branches of the federal government. She served as Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush; counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary; and law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. She practiced public international law and arbitration at Clifford Chance LLP in London. Ms. Rao received her JD with high honors from the University of Chicago and her BA from Yale University.

Silicon Valley is already rebelling against a plan by Republican Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai that would cancel the government’s network neutrality rules — and perhaps leave it to telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast to decide whether to adhere to open internet principles. "I think in practice, it goes against everything we would want in strong net neutrality protections,” said Evan Engstrom, the executive director of Engine. The group works with startups on policy issues in San Francisco (CA). As a result, Engstrom said he expected a “similar level of engagement that we saw the last time around when we had to fight” — a vicious rhetorical war that drew even John Oliver into the fray. And he said the tech industry again would “do everything we can to rally the community and the public.”

To that end, one of the Valley’s lobbying voices in Washington, the Internet Association, will share its views privately with Chairman Pai at the FCC the week of April 10, apparently. The group, which represents the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter, declined to comment on the meeting. In a statement, though, a spokesman for the Internet Association said, “Internet companies are ready to fight to maintain strong net neutrality protections in any forum. ISPs must not be allowed to meddle with people’s right to access content and services online and efforts to weaken net neutrality rules are bad for consumers and innovation.”

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) blasted Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s reported plans to scale back network neutrality measures. “The only way to protect a free and open internet is with strong net neutrality rules of the road — not voluntary guidelines — that ensure businesses, innovators and families can use the world’s greatest platform for commerce and communications,” Sen Markey said. “Chairman Pai’s proposal would put the future of an open and free internet in the hands of big corporations and the powerful few at the expense of consumers.”

The House Judiciary Committee asked the Trump Administration to disclose an estimate of the number of Americans whose digital communications are incidentally collected under foreign surveillance programs. Such an estimate is "crucial as we contemplate reauthorization," of parts of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that are due to expire at the end of 2017, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) wrote in a letter addressed to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. The request comes as some Republican lawmakers, many of whom have stridently defended US surveillance programs in the past, express sudden interest in considering additional privacy safeguards to how US spy agencies collect and share intelligence that contains information about Americans.