Lauren Frayer

Thomas Rutledge, chief executive of Charter Communications, committed in a meeting with President Donald Trump to invest $25 billion on broadband infrastructure while joining a trend of business leaders touting previously announced job creation at the White House. In the case of Charter — Southern California’s dominant cable-TV and Internet service provider — Rutledge said he expected to hire 20,000 new US employees over the next four years. Charter had made the hiring promise in 2015 when it was purchasing Time Warner Cable. The new development was the time period in which it will occur. Nevertheless, President Trump indicated the job creation was triggered by his election.

“We are really in the process of announcements and you’re going to see thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs and companies and everything coming back into our country,” President Trump said, flanked by Rutledge and Gov Greg Abbott (R-TX). “They’re coming in far faster than even I had projected.” The large investment in broadband infrastructure was a new commitment from Charter. Rutledge signaled that it was made because of the policies of President Trump and congressional Republicans, who have promised to cut corporate taxes and reduce regulations.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai issued the following statement on the announcement by Charter Communications on broadband investment: “The FCC’s top priority is making sure that any American who wants high-speed Internet access, or broadband, is able to get it. To do that, since January, we have been working to set rules of the road that encourage companies to build and upgrade broadband networks across the country. I’m pleased to see that our investment-friendly policies, along with the Administration’s overall regulatory approach, are already producing results. I applaud Charter Communications for its announcement today that it intends to spend $25 billion in broadband infrastructure and technology over the next four years. I am optimistic that this massive investment will help to close the digital divide and to strengthen our economy.”

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin riled the tech community when he said that displacement of jobs by artificial intelligence and automation is "not even on my radar screen" because the technology is "50-100 more years" away. Sec Mnuchin also said he is "not worried at all" about robots displacing humans in the near future. "In fact, I'm optimistic."

The reaction from the tech community was harsh and swift. DJ Patil, former US Chief Data Scientist, pointed out the Obama Administration's report on artificial intelligence and said "Read to see why we need to get ready now." "This is actually kind of frightening, particularly the dismissal of the impact of AI and machine learning on jobs," tweeted Larry Irving, a former Clinton Administration official who works with tech companies. "Has he talked to anyone in the tech (or any) industry recently?"

[Commentary] In short, President Donald Trump is very likely a short-timer whose moment on our national stage — even if it lasts four years — will not have warranted the degree to which it has shifted our attention from the important long-term issues that do not go away simply because we stop paying attention to them or, as in the case of climate change or Russian wrongdoing, our president continues to pretend they don’t exist. President Trump will not inadvertently or otherwise damage the fundamentals of what makes America great. Indeed, recent events have restored hope that perhaps his story may one day be seen as proof that the American system works and that bad actors are ultimately brought down.

But we need to tear our eyes away from the spectacle of this clusterf--k of a presidency and its daily dramas and periodically look up and out to our horizons, recognizing that the narcissism aside, there remains real greatness in America that needs tending, planning, and nurturing in the context of the real world — even if, at the moment, there is very little evidence of that greatness at the center of our government.

On March 23 the Senate voted to eliminate privacy rules that would have forced Internet service providers to get your consent before selling Web browsing history and app usage history to advertisers. Within a week, the House of Representatives could follow suit, and the rules approved by the Federal Communications Commission in 2016 would be eliminated by Congress.

So what has changed for Internet users? In one sense, nothing changed this week, because the requirement to obtain customer consent before sharing or selling data is not scheduled to take effect until at least December 4, 2017. ISPs didn’t have to follow the rules yesterday or the day before, and they won’t ever have to follow them if the rules are eliminated. But the Senate vote is nonetheless one big step toward a major victory for ISPs, one that would give them legal certainty if they continue to make aggressive moves into the advertising market.

Years before Donald Trump took over the government, secure digital communication tools including Signal and Tor have been receiving substantial funding from a perhaps surprising source: the US taxpayer. Since 2012, an organization called the Open Technology Fund (OTF) has operated within an often overlooked offshoot of the US government that traces its origins back to the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe broadcasts that took otherwise censored information—and highlighted American culture and prosperity—behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

The OTF’s budget is inexpensive by the standards of government programs, and laughably small for a tech incubator—its reported budget last year was $7.5 million, compared to $27 million that Y Combinator invested in early-stage startups. Yet it faces an uncertain future under President Donald Trump.

The White House has called for eliminating two regulations for every new one imposed, and though the policy doesn't apply to independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is sticking with the spirit of it. He told reporters that during his short tenure so far, the FCC has repealed, revised or tweaked what he described as outdated regulations. "I think the prism within which the FCC views any regulations that are on the books is: Do they continue to be necessary in the public interest and to promote competition in 2017," Chairman Pai said. "And if they don't, then we obviously want to modernize them to make sure that we're not standing in the way of investment or innovation or otherwise imposing more costs."

Apparently, Comcast has acquired rights from cable network owners to offer their channels nationwide, giving the biggest US cable operator a backup plan if rival online-TV services catch on with consumers. The rights allow Comcast to sell video service for the first time outside its regional territories, which include Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia. In most cases, Comcast acquired the rights through “most favored nation” clauses in contracts, which let the company sell channels in the same places as new online distributors.

Since Comcast doesn’t sell traditional cable-TV service in markets like New York and Los Angeles, the rights mean the company could presumably offer a package of channels as an online-streaming service in those cities. In some scenarios, Comcast asked for the rights as part of broader carriage negotiations with programmers. For now at least, Comcast has no plans to offer a video service nationwide because it still sees opportunity to gain cable-TV subscribers in its footprint, apparently.

AT&T Fiber, the new brand for an fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) effort previously called AT&T GigaPower, said it has expanded its footprint to parts of 17 more metros. The latest cities to get access include Birmingham (AL), Charleston and Colombia (SC), Chicago (IL), Greensboro (NC), Huntsville and Mobile (AL), Houston (TX), Indianapolis (IN), Kansas City (MO), Little Rock (AR), Los Angeles (Jurupa, Los Angeles and Orange County) (CA), San Diego and Sacramento (CA), Memphis (TN), New Orleans (LA), and St. Louis (MO). In markets such as San Diego and New Orleans, AT&T Fiber is selling a symmetirical 1 Gbps service starting at $80 per month, with a 12-month commitment, rising to $119 per month after that introductory period. AT&T is also pitching TV bundles with DirecTV and U-verse TV.

[Commentary] Kudos to the House Commerce Committee’s for its recent hearing on Broadband: Deploying America’s 21st Century Infrastructure. The session demonstrated different views on how and to what degree the government should be involved in broadband deployment, but it also exposed policymakers’ assumptions on broadband and showed what information is missing from the discussion:
Flawed Assumption 1: Government subsidies for broadband will create economic growth.
Flawed Assumption 2: Private providers are failing in their investments.
Flawed Assumption 3: Government should adopt a broadband speed target.
False Assumption 4: The quality of mobile coverage is a function of the network.
False Assumption 5: There is no business case for investment.

[Roslyn Layton is on the FCC transition team and is a PhD Fellow at the Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark.]