benton's blog

For nearly 35 years, the Benton Foundation has promoted policy solutions to make sure all Americans have equitable and affordable access to information infrastructure and to information and knowledge essential to community and individual development.

A Day to Recommit to Universal Broadband Access

I love anniversaries. They give us a chance to review where we’ve been – and recommit to our goals. Today is one of those days.

Today, most Internet service providers (ISPs) have implemented some form of a data cap.(1) These caps limit the amount of access a consumer has to data before they are charged surplus fees or cut off from the network. Although there is little clarity as to why such caps are necessary, their unintended consequences could be disastrous for vulnerable populations.

When Comcast tried to merge with Time Warner Cable last year, reaction was swift and negative. Not many people liked the idea of America’s largest and least loved cable company getting any bigger; the deal collapsed after hundreds of thousands of Americans spoke out and federal regulators signaled that they would not let it go forward.

A year and a half ago, this blog discussed the “Sisyphean Task” imposed upon the Federal Communications Commission to engage in a never-ending review of its broadcast ownership rules.

As we welcome the New Year, policy wonks appreciate that as the last year of a second-term president, this is a special year. That means major turnover is coming in senior posts in the Administration regardless of who wins the presidency. It also means that policy people should be beginning to draft their proposals for the next Administration.