Sarah Morris

We have a connection problem. Statistics from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) show that around 18 million people in the U.S. do not have high-speed broadband options from any provider, but those numbers are based on metrics that policymakers widely agree need fixing.

As the country confronts its long, deeply rooted history of racism, we must all acknowledge our own role in racist systems and make changes to ensure we are part of the solution, rather than the problem. With over 2.6 billion users, Facebook has a clear responsibility to reckon with its role in these systems or risk continuing to facilitate oppression that imperils Black lives. Despite repeated calls to action from inside and outside the company, Facebook has long struggled with this responsibility.

A Q&A with Sarah Morris, director of Open Internet Policy and senior policy counsel at the Open Technology Institute. 

[Commentary] Between election day and inauguration day, there are ten and a half weeks for a new President to get his or her policy agenda in order, and the next President will need to hit the ground running once in office. When it comes to internet policy, it will be necessary to build on the forward momentum that has brought this Administration closer to closing the digital divide.

President Obama’s technology agenda was ambitious, particularly on issues like network neutrality and broadband access and adoption, and his success on those issues is likely to shape his legacy as a technology leader. One of the most important tasks on the next President’s plate will be to resist the temptation to focus exclusively on newer, shinier policy priorities, and to instead continue to build on the groundwork that the Obama Administration laid to fully close the digital divide. President Barack Obama worked to ensure an open, robust, and affordable internet in communities across the country. He made impressive progress. But the next President must ensure that the benefits of broadband access are realized for all communities.

[Commentary] A year ago, President Barack Obama unveiled the ConnectED initiative, declaring that his goal was to connect virtually every school in the United States to high-speed Internet by the end of the decade.

A key piece of the Administration's plan is reforming the Federal Communications Commission's E-rate program, which subsidizes communications services for schools and libraries across the country.

Earlier in June, a diverse coalition of over 100 organizations from the education sector, technology, and business communities (including the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute and Education Policy Program) sent a letter to the FCC urging the agency to modernize and expand the E-rate program. The letter outlines a series of joint recommendations which include upgrading E-rate to provide schools and libraries not just with Internet connectivity but also sufficient capacity to use new digital learning tools; prioritizing funding to support both high-speed broadband to the premises and ubiquitous Wi-Fi connectivity over other, outdated technologies; incentivizing schools and libraries to purchase connectivity more efficiently; and simplifying the program to streamline the application process.

The letter also urges the FCC to set clear targets for connectivity moving forward, to improve data collection practices and program transparency, and to commit to reviewing E-rate's goals every four years. The proposed reforms would address some of these concerns but not all. Focusing on infrastructure investments is the key to E-rate's ability to meet the goal of providing a gigabit of capacity per 1,000 students by the end of the decade.

While Wi-Fi upgrades are needed so that students, teachers and library patrons can access the Internet on their individual devices, these improvements must be made in conjunction with significant investments in broadband infrastructure that increase overall capacity at their institutions.

[Kehl is a policy analyst; Morris is a senior policy counsel, for the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation]

[Commentary] If you want a glimpse into what the speed of your Internet connection might look like under the newly proposed Open Internet rules, take yourself back to the last uncomfortable hour of a long plane flight.

You know the feeling. You're back in economy class wondering if seats have actually gotten smaller these past few years (they probably have), and amazed when you glance up front and see how appealing business class has become.

That's what the Internet could look like soon. With all the talk about fast lanes and paid prioritization recently, the Federal Communication Commission's proposed rules could lead us down a path where regular and premium service levels make Internet service look a lot more like air travel.

Tiered service has been common in air travel for years, with airlines offering special amenities and improved service for those who can afford to pay more, while everyone else gets crammed into regular seats. Although almost everyone would prefer to travel more comfortably and wait in faster security and boarding lines, it's often challenging for airlines to convince people to pay the premium for first class: It can cost up to ten times more to fly business instead of economy on a trans-Atlantic flight, and both seats get you to the same destination.

So while airlines try to make first class more appealing with new amenities and personalized attention, they simultaneously have an incentive against improving the quality of "regular" service as a way to protect their higher-end business. And as airlines have struggled financially in recent years, it appears they may even be actively degrading economy class options.

What's more, this tactic has the added benefit of increasing the appeal of premium options while still maintaining the premium price. This nuance is critical because it illustrates the incentives for airlines not only to make more seats available by reducing their size, but to increase the disparity between economy and premium seats to make the premium seats even more attractive to flyers.

[Morris is the Senior Policy Counsel and Kehl is a Policy Analyst at New America's Open Technology Institute]