press release

Democrats on the House Commerce Committee introduced a broad 21st Century infrastructure package that includes key areas within the Committee’s jurisdiction, including broadband, drinking water, healthcare, the electric grid, brownfields and renewable energy infrastructure. The Leading Infrastructure For Tomorrow’s America Act, or LIFT America Act (H.R. 2479), sets out five years of funding for essential infrastructure improvements, job growth, and greater protections for public health and the environment. The LIFT America Act includes investments in several key areas including $40 billion for the deployment of secure and resilient broadband to expand access for communities nationwide while promoting security by design.

The LIFT America Act will invest in programs with proven records of job creation. The legislation requires the payment of prevailing wages. The bill will also spur new high-paying technology jobs by supporting deployment of smart buildings, smart grid, and Smart Communities technology.

The LIFT America Act is sponsored by Reps Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Gene Green (D-TX), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Mike Doyle (D-PA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), G.K. Butterfield (D-NC), Doris Matsui (D-CA), Kathy Castor (D-FL), John Sarbanes (D-MD), Jerry McNerney (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Paul Tonko (D-NY), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Dave Loebsack (D-IA), Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), Raul Ruiz (D-CA), Scott Peters (D-CA) and Debbie Dingell (D-MI).

Connecting our nation’s schools, libraries, health clinics, and other community anchor institutions (CAIs) to affordable high-speed broadband needs to be a national infrastructure priority, especially in rural markets. In an effort to accomplish this goal, the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition released a letter to President Trump signed by 30 companies and anchor institutions urging the Trump Administration to include funding to deploy high-capacity broadband to and through anchor institutions in rural markets in the upcoming infrastructure package.

The term “anchor institution” refers to any large community institution that serves the needs of the general public, and includes community colleges, public housing, community centers, public media, and local government offices in addition to schools, libraries, health clinics and hospitals. These community anchor institutions are crucial to closing America’s digital divide. The letter stresses that deploying high-capacity broadband to all rural anchor institutions is a cost-effective model to connect entire communities and stimulate economic growth. Unfortunately, the needs of anchor institutions are not addressed by existing funding mechanisms like the FCC’s Connect America Fund because anchor institutions need much greater bandwidth than the 10 Mbps service provided to residential consumers. The letter emphasizes the importance of an open application process for federal funding to spur competition, networking sharing to promote public-private partnerships, and coordinated and streamlined deployment, such as “dig once” and “make ready” policies. The digital divide is most acutely felt in rural America. The costs of deploying high-speed broadband in rural areas can be two to three times higher than in urban markets which makes it difficult for commercial companies to invest without financial support.

[Editor’s note: Benton is a member of the SHLB Coalition and signed the letter.]

President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate David J. Redl of New York to be Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, Department of Commerce.

Redl is currently Chief Counsel at the US House of Representatives Commerce Committee. He serves as principal legal advisor to the Chairman and Members of the Commerce majority on communications and technology matters. Prior to his time with the Commerce Committee, Redl was Director of Regulatory Affairs at CTIA - The Wireless Association, where his work focused on spectrum policy, wireless broadband, and reducing regulatory mandates. Redl earned a BA in Journalism and a BA in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University and a JD from the Catholic University of America. Redl is admitted to the New York and District of Columbia bars.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) announced that this year’s recipient of the Charles Benton Digital Equity Champion Award is Emy Tseng, a Senior Communications Program Specialist at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the US Department of Commerce. Since joining the NTIA in 2009, Tseng has worked to increase broadband access and adoption in underserved communities throughout the United States. From 2009 to 2014, she managed a portfolio of local government and K-12 education grants for the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. She was a major contributor to the Broadband Adoption Toolkit published by NTIA in 2013. She continues her work with NTIA’s BroadbandUSA program providing technical assistance to local and state governments that foster digital equity. Throughout her career, Tseng has demonstrated the ability to combine policy, practice, and data to create a holistic approach to digital inclusion. Before joining NTIA, Tseng served as the Digital Inclusion Director for the City of San Francisco, where she shaped one of the earliest local government digital inclusion programs and served on the first California State Broadband Task Force. Her work in San Francisco not only promoted computer ownership, digital skills, and Internet access, but also paid special attention to the needs of marginalized communities, showing that it is in the best interest of cities to bridge the digital divide. Tseng additionally served as a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, where her work on “inclusive innovation” analyzed how vulnerable communities use, adapt, and shape technology to address their needs and goals.

Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy today announced the appointment of Gigi Sohn as a Distinguished Fellow. A renowned public interest lawyer who has worked in communications and technology policy for nearly 30 years, Sohn recently concluded three years of service as counselor to then-Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler. During that time, Sohn played a central role as the agency formulated and adopted key policies relating to net neutrality, broadband privacy, broadband access and other matters. Sohn’s work at Georgetown Law’s Tech Institute will focus on the vital role of open, democratic, accessible and affordable communications networks, media and technology. During her appointment, Sohn will publish articles, convene public events and contribute to Georgetown’s academic community.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed a $144,344 fine against Vearl Pennington and Michael Williamson for operating an unlicensed low-power television station in Morehead (KY). An FCC investigation found that these individuals continued to operate well after the FCC license for their station was cancelled following failure to file a renewal. The proposed fine is the maximum allowed for ongoing violations of the Communications Act, justified by the individuals’ continued operation of the station for years despite repeated warnings that they were in violation of the law.

Sens Joe Manchin (D-WV), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced the Rural Wireless Access Act of 2017. This legislation would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to collect broadband coverage data that is valid, consistent, and robust. This standardized data is necessary to ensure that policies to expand broadband deployment accurately target the unserved and underserved communities and account for the mobile coverage experience of those living in the most remote parts of the country. Other original cosponsors include Sens Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Gary Peters (D-MI).

This bill would direct the FCC to establish a methodology to:
Ensure that wireless coverage data is collected in a consistent and robust way;
Improve the validity and reliability of wireless coverage data;
Increase the efficiency of wireless coverage data collection.

Free Press and a coalition of media-rights groups petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to stay its ruling reinstating an obsolete television-ownership rule. The rule in question, called the “UHF discount,” allows broadcasters to exceed the national ownership cap by discounting the actual population coverage of their UHF broadcast stations for purposes of calculating their stations’ reach.

The FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai voted in April to put this rule back on the books to pave the way for runaway broadcast-industry consolidation, like the Sinclair-Tribune merger that was announced earlier this week. These conglomerates hope to exploit the discount to leap over the 39 percent national audience-reach cap Congress put in place. In their petition to the agency, Common Cause, Free Press, Media Alliance, Media Mobilizing Project, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Prometheus Radio Project and the United Church of Christ Office of Communication, Inc. explain that this is a dangerous outcome stemming from a bad agency decision. The UHF discount is a technically obsolete loophole that allows the FCC to underestimate the true reach of broadcast companies. It’s technically obsolete because while UHF stations once had weaker signals, today stations broadcasting on these channels actually have better signals thanks to the Digital TV transition that occurred a decade ago. As the groups’ filing makes clear, “Reinstatement of the UHF discount opens the door for rapid and massive consolidation despite a congressional directive that there should be a limit on the scope of national ownership.”

Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center (ACS3), a nonprofit inter-generational technology learning center in the heart of Cleveland (OH) helps those still living on the other side of the digital divide keep up. More than half of the participants in Ashbury’s programs have an annual household income below $15,000 with few options available to them to learn technology and get access to the internet on their own. Mobile Citizen’s partnership and much-needed affordable internet has been a key component in Ashbury’s ability to offer this new and innovative Services Call Center program.

Ashbury, together with Connect Your Community (CYC), recently launched a Services Call Center offering nonprofit customers basic services such as research design, survey creation, survey programming, survey administration, data analysis, data cleaning, data entry, focus group hosting, focus group moderation, evaluation and report writing. It doubles as a valuable workforce development opportunity for their 6,000 digital literacy program participants as call center associates are required to have to have digital literacy and other technology skills to be able to participate in the program.

Gov Roy Cooper’s (R-NC) Common Ground Solutions budget included $20 million to improve internet access and service to households and businesses in underserved areas of North Carolina. Of that $20 million, $14.5 million would create a grant program to help local governments partnering with private providers and utility cooperatives complete ‘last mile’ broadband projects.

Newly released information from the Broadband Infrastructure Office identified at least 16 last-mile and middle-mile broadband projects across the state that could compete for this funding. If approved, these projects could provide needed internet access to thousands of North Carolinians and spur economic development. “Broadband access is a must for economic success in our rural communities,” said Gov Cooper. “We have already seen how access to high-speed internet has allowed business in rural areas to thrive. We cannot deprive rural North Carolinians of this vital tool for competition in a global marketplace.”