Roslyn Layton

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an essential report AFFORDABLE BROADBAND: FCC Could Improve Performance Goals and Measures, Consumer Outreach, and Fraud Risk Management, written by GAO Director of Infrastructure Andr

With a $14 billion appropriation from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) has enrolled more than 14 million households in a short period of time and may be the most effective broadband benefit program to date with its direct-to-consumer model. The innovative program offers a valuable policy learning opportunity as lawmakers consider sustainable long-term funding options to continue it. Many features of the ACP reflect guidance from policy academics and researchers that supports a model that allows consumers more options.

Despite the pandemic, the Federal Communications Commission advanced major spectrum policy and auctions in 2020. Yet despite continued successes of commercial spectrum auctions in which market actors pay for the right to use the public’s resources, policymakers persist in giving away valuable resources to Big Tech. 5G licensed mid-band spectrum is projected to deliver $191.8 billion to the US economy over 7 years. Wi-Fi revenues over unlicensed spectrum over 6 years are projected to bring $153.76 billion. When adjusted on an annual per MHz basis, 5G spectrum is $0.59 and Wi-Fi, $0.13.

This paper describes the challenge of four rural broadband providers operating fiber to the home networks to recover the middle mile network costs of streaming video entertainment and quantifies the amount of the current and future shortfall. It describes the components of the rural broadband networks, policy background for their evolution, an overview of providers, and the financial calculations of cost recovery. The preliminary results show that current broadband prices are approximately $50 per month per subscriber.

The Federal Communication Commission released its annual Broadband Deployment report for 2020. It notes the narrowest digital divide to date as more than 85 percent of Americans have a fixed terrestrial broadband service at 250/25 Mbps, a 47% increase since 2017 with many of the biggest gains in rural areas. However, the two Democrat Commissioners rejected the report, saying the data was fundamentally flawed, that as many as 162 million people lack broadband (half the population of the USA!). What’s going on? Here are six sleights of hand used in the debate:

Many complain about the price of cable, but few realize that key culprits can be state and local franchising authorities (LFAs), whose taxes, fees, and surcharges on top of the basic price can account for 20 percent or more of the total price. Operators need to secure a franchise agreement to build and run cable service, and that can entail acceding to all types of demands from LFAs over and above the franchise fees that operators have to pay under federal law.

Some may be tempted to predict judicial outcomes by looking at the party of the judges and the President who nominated them. The panel scheduled to hear Mozilla v. Federal Communications Commission in the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit features judges who have both ruled for and against administrative agencies. The panel includes Senior Circuit Judge Stephen Williams (appointed by President Reagan) who issued a blistering 68-page dissent against the FCC’s Open Internet Order in 2015.

My report “Tech Policy and the Midterm Elections” examined the role of tech policy in the election and whether the issue of net neutrality would encourage millennials to vote.

While there is now a growing consensus among the tech industry, regulatory advocates, and policymakers on the need for comprehensive privacy legislation, a blueprint proposed in President Barack Obama’s 2012 Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights proved unsuccessful. Had Congress taken up legislation in 2012, it may have forestalled the egregious regulations the European Union and California adopted. In any case, the principles agreed on today generally align with those proposed in 2012.

Voters in elections tend to focus on topline policy issues such as the economy and health care, not tech policy, which enjoys considerable bipartisan agreement and offers little opportunity to highlight differences with opponents. Network neutrality internet regulation is an exception, as Democratic lawmakers use it both as symbolic politics at the federal and state level and as a wedge issue to bring millennial voters, a group with historically low turnout in midterms, to the polls.