Op-Ed

Ultimately, the ping-pong match of network neutrality will not be resolved by political struggles over control of the Federal Communications Commission. A lasting solution can only come from bipartisan legislation, which will involve compromise. Identifying the points of compromise, places where each side is willing to give ground, is impossible if the two sides see each other as enemies worthy of contempt rather than basically good people who can reasonably disagree, even about important issues.

China is planning to deploy fiber-optic connections to 80 percent of the homes in the country. What’s new about China's massive deployment of fiber, both in its own territory and in its global market along its planned Belt and Road, is that China is likely to permit only 5G equipment made by Huawei and a handful of other Chinese companies to connect to that fiber. China, not America, will be the place where new online services are born. Although the US came up with the idea of the internet, we don't have a sandbox to play in, a giant market in which to test new high-capacity services.

A healthy public sphere needs a healthy public media. We’ve built the equivalent for television and radio. Now it’s time to do it for the Internet. The simplest way to proceed is to tax major technology companies to pay for better content.  A billion-dollar federal funding infusion to upgrade public media would be a start — perhaps paid for by a “journalism tax” on the largest tech platforms, as has been proposed in Britain.

The US needs a positive alternative to the Chinese 5G model, and it needs to put it forward right now, before or during Barcelona. If we don’t, this year’s Mobile World Congress risks turning into a victory lap for Huawei and Beijing. The solution is not, as some have put it, to “become like China to beat China.” China is playing to its own strengths—state-directed investment and financing, lack of checks and balances internally, and a unified decision-making structure—to support its goal of wireless domination.

The surprisingly complex journey a text message takes every time we hit 'send.'

Engineers would say that, when the phone senses voltage fluctuations over the ‘send’ button, it sends the encoded message to the SIM card (that tiny card your cell provider puts in your phone so it knows what your phone number is), and in the process it wraps it in all sorts of useful contextual data. By the time it reaches my wife’s SIM, it goes from a 140-byte message (just the text) to a 176-byte message (text + context).

Digital distress is defined here as census tracts (neighborhoods) that had a 1) high percentage of homes not subscribing to the internet or subscribing only through a cellular data plan and a 2) high percent of homes with no computing devices or relying only on mobile devices. This post takes a deeper look at the socioeconomic characteristics of these digitally distressed areas. The socioeconomic characteristics of those in digital distress denote a higher share of minorities, less educated, poorer, and younger residents.

The dearth of broadband Internet connectivity is the bane of many rural areas, exacerbating demographic decline by contributing to out-migration of millennials and loss of business opportunities. Merely installing high-speed fiber-optic networks across rural America, while vital, will not be enough. Significant public and private investment in K-16 education is required to build a new digital economy future for rural America.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the digital divide is the “homework gap.” The term – first coined by FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel – describes the situation faced by the estimated 12 million students that cannot complete their school assignments because they have no broadband access at home. As she notes, roughly 7 in 10 teachers assign homework that requires a broadband connection, which means that many students, especially in low-income communities, are missing out on the educational opportunities afforded to their connected peers.

Digital distress areas have a harder time using and leveraging the internet to improve their quality of life due to the type of internet subscription or devices owned. Digital distress is defined here as census tracts (neighborhoods) that had a 1) high percentage of homes not subscribing to the internet or subscribing only through a cellular data plan and a 2) high percent of homes with no computing devices or relying only on mobile devices.

‘Zero-Rating’— the commercial practice whereby an internet service provider (ISP) doesn’t count the use of an app or service against your monthly data cap — has come under renewed scrutiny earlier in Feb when a study by digital rights organization Epicenter.works found that countries that allow its use see average data prices increase over time. The thing is, rather than spreading knowledge, zero-rating offers are often vectors of misinformation. At first sight, zero-rating offers look like a sweet deal for consumers and a noble effort to connect the world, but beyond appearances, they’re j