Michael Calabrese

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a unique opportunity today to help close the digital divide by authorizing high-powered two-way fixed wireless service in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band (the lower 12 GHz band). This will bring more upper mid-band spectrum to the market for high-powered, two-way fixed wireless service.

The Open Technology Institute at New America (“OTI”) urged the Federal Communications Commission to restore its authority to hold ISPs accountable for anti-consumer policies and behavior by reclassifying broadband internet access services as a Title II telecommunications service and reestablishing net neutrality protections across the United States. OTI’s comments urge the FCC to update its rules to address additional issues like “zero rating” and paid interconnection agreements, and to improve ISPs’ transparency to consumers about their broadband services.

Public Knowledge and New America’s Open Technology Institute, on behalf of the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, filed comments with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in response to the agency’s Request for Comment on developing a national spectrum strategy. The filing urges the NTIA to adopt a national spectrum strategy that will not only secure our nation’s future as a wireless leader but also serve the public b

Far faster mobile broadband speeds and new services on your 5G-enabled smartphone or a greater risk that your next flight crashes on landing? This should be a false choice in tech-savvy America.

Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (including Public Knowledge, New America, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Access Humboldt, Center for Rural Strategies, Tribal Digital Village, the Institute for Local Self Reliance, and the Schools, Health, Libraries & Broadband Coalition) filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission in response to the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on regulatory fees for 2021. The filing outlines why the Commission should reject its flawed and confusing proposal to require unlicensed spectrum users to pay regulatory fees.

Is our practice of dumping the proceeds from the privatization of the public airwaves into the federal treasury, as is now routinely done, the best use of this precious public resource? No. The nation should dedicate a sizable share of spectrum auction proceeds to closing these digital equity gaps and should establish a reliable, proven vehicle to pursue this task. An endowed, independent, and private charitable foundation would best have the flexibility, research focus, long-term time perspective, and ability to engage other partners that such a mission will require.

This report updates and expands on a paper the author presented nearly a decade ago at the Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC), which predated the Federal Communications Commission’s adoption of a use-it-or-share-it approach in several underutilized bands. These use-it-or-share-it precedents should pave the way to an authorization of opportunistic access as the default policy for a growing number of underutilized and newly allocated or auctioned bands, both federal and commercial.

A high-stakes auction of government-owned airwaves to mobile broadband providers is set to drop a record windfall exceeding $80 billion into the US Treasury. Two additional auctions of wireless frequency bands, called spectrum, are on tap for 2021 and slated to follow the same course. The nation has become painfully aware of the digital divides that are widening inequality, slowing productivity, and impeding innovation.

A coalition of education advocates petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to close the remote learning gap for the estimated 15 to 16 million students who lack home internet access. If granted, the petition would allow schools and libraries to connect these disconnected learners using funding from the E-rate program.

This report profiles the many innovative options that school districts have pioneered to build or extend wireless broadband connectivity out to student households that cannot afford to purchase high-speed internet access at home.