Op-Ed

At present, 34 states (and the District of Columbia) have introduced some kind of open internet legislation.

Maybe the answer to fixing social media isn’t trying to change companies with business models built around products that hijack our attention, and instead work to create a less toxic alternative. Nonprofit public media is part of the answer.

Media coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns began in earnest well over a year ago — but it is not providing citizens with the news and information we need in order to cast informed ballots. We are two former Federal Communications Commission chairmen who believe one critical issue the media is avoiding is … the media itself. The high level of consolidation and corporatization that exists in the industry today speaks to media’s lack of interest in addressing the current shortfall in our news and information.

I’ve always believed that when we invest in our infrastructure, including improved access to broadband, we invest in opportunity for every American. If we do this right, we can bridge the rural and urban divide that’s damaging our country and hurting our economy. 

In their recent Op-Ed in the Washington Post, “Cities, not rural areas, are the real Internet deserts,” authors Blair Levin and Larry Downes argue that the digital divide in cities persists because uneducated people do not understand the importance, or “relevance,” of the internet in their everyday lives.

• Digital deserts exist, more so in rural areas.
• The urban-rural access divide is sizeable and still persists.
• A little less than half of housing units in the country are sliced up in between either top 6 only providers or other providers only.
• The technology with the largest footprint in the nation (DSL) also has the lowest median advertised speeds pointing to a potential quality of service issue.

The digital divide is not exclusively or even most significantly a rural problem. Three times as many households in urban areas remain unconnected as in rural areas. And regardless of geography, access isn’t the main reason these homes are without Internet service. The vast majority of US homes without broadband service could have it today, but they don’t want it.

Tech companies may have found their most formidable opponents: state attorneys general. In the past week, nine attorneys general have joined to examine whether Facebook has engaged in anti-competitive practices, such as stifling competitors or increasing the price of advertising. And 50 announced an investigation into potential monopolistic behavior by Google, which will likely include scrutiny of its search and advertising businesses. When state attorneys general band together, they are an imposing force.

Wi-Fi officially launched 20 years ago, on September 15, 1999. There are many ways in which Wi-Fi might not have become ubiquitous, and instead HomeRF (home radio frequency) remained a competing standard. Had the Wireless Ethernet Compatability Alliance (WECA) chose to focus on just business connectivity, not "go-anywhere" connectivity, workers would have used "FlankSpeed" (a re-envisioned "Wi-Fi") at the office and HomeRF at home. It would be more difficult to bring work home with you. Neither an embattled FlankSpeed nor HomeRF could ever have been as cheap, or as pervasive, as Wi-Fi.

The Aug. 12 Washington Post editorial “Stuck without Internet” outlined possible solutions to address the challenge of connecting more Americans to the Internet. We already have a broadband program to bridge the divide for poor rural Americans.