Research

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau presents this report on voice services in the schools and libraries universal service support mechanism (more commonly known as the E-rate program), as directed by the FCC in its 2014 E-rate Order. During the phasedown of voice services which began in funding year 2015, fewer applicants have applied for voice services, though most of the applicants who no longer apply for voice services continue to seek E-rate support for other services. Further, the majority of the applicants who did not receive E-rate support for any service other than voice services in funding year 2014 now receive E-rate support for services other than voice.

In an era when Americans’ choices about whom to turn to and trust for news are often divided along political lines, a new Pew Research Center study of media coverage of the early days of the Trump administration finds those preferences can be significant. Seven-in-ten stories from outlets with a left-leaning audience and 62% from those with a more mixed audience included at least two of nine types of sources evaluated, such as a member of the administration, a member of Congress, or an outside expert. That was true, however, of less than half the stories (44%) from outlets with a right-leaning audience. In particular, outlets whose audience leans right of center were less likely to include Trump and his administration, outside experts or interest groups as sources. They were also about half as likely to include voices from both Democratic and Republican members of Congress (7% of stories vs. 14% for outlets with a left-leaning audience and 15% for outlets with a more mixed audience).

Compared with the three prior presidencies, coverage of Trump’s early days in office moved further away from a focus on the policy agenda (31% of stories, compared with 50% for Obama, 65% for Bush and 58% for Clinton) and toward character and leadership. And the evaluations of President Trump were far more negative and less positive than those of his predecessors.

Mobile-only users are usually perceived as a consequence of fixed-mobile substitution. This study uses a unique dataset based on a survey in France, combined with interviewee's telecommunications billing data, to reveal heterogeneous consumer preferences for fixed services.

With the same mixed logit model we estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) for fixed communications services and fixed-mobile relationship. Results show a very large heterogeneity of WTP for fixed services among consumers. In addition, we show that fixed and mobile data are complement for all consumers. Mobile-only consumers have a much lower but non-zero WTP, and higher price sensitivity compared to fixed-mobile consumers. Consequently, an increase in the fixed offer price would reduce the demand for fixed service. Heterogeneous preferences for fixed services constitute an alternative explanation for the existence of mobile-only users, despite the complementary nature of fixed and mobile broadband. Counter-factual simulations show that the share of mobile-only could also be driven by the way to subsidize mobile handset. For instance, making the handset subsidy only available to fixed-mobile quadruple play subscribers could reduce the share of mobile-only by half.

Millions of households subscribe to cable, satellite, and telephone companies—known as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs)—for television, which is generally delivered via a set-top box attached to a television. Congress directed Federal Communications Commission to adopt regulations to assure a commercial market for devices to access MVPDs, and in February 2016, FCC proposed a rule intended to do so. Many industry stakeholders raised concerns about the proposal's potential effects, and FCC did not issue the proposed rule. This report examines: (1) the role of set-top boxes in accessing video programming content and (2) views of selected stakeholders and experts on the need for FCC regulation regarding set-top boxes and FCC's analysis of such need.

GAO analyzed data from a media research group regarding the video market and interviewed 35 industry stakeholders including 12 MVPDs, 5 video content producers, 3 device manufacturers, 12 industry associations, and others; GAO selected stakeholders based on comments filed with FCC on its 2016 proposed rule. GAO also interviewed 11 industry analysts and experts selected based on industry coverage and publications.

GAO recommends that FCC conduct a comprehensive analysis of how recent industry changes related to video services affect consumer choice for devices to access video services. The FCC agreed with GAO's recommendation and provided technical comments that GAO incorporated as appropriate.

While broadband internet access has increased over time, there remains a digital divide in access to and adoption of high-speed internet. Closing this gap must be a priority, and will take a substantial federal investment to do. There are still 34 million residents that do not have at least one broadband provider in their community. While nearly all of Connecticut has access to high-speed internet, more than one third of Mississippi’s residents lack access. At local levels, the disparities get larger. In more than 200 counties, no one has access to broadband internet. Congress must prioritize rural broadband expansion in any national comprehensive infrastructure plan debated in the 115th Congress.

Further, Congress needs to work on closing the gap in at-home internet usage. All Americans can benefit from having the internet in their homes, giving them better access to educational, health, and career-related resources. Bridging this gap will require improving competition to bring consumer costs down and expanding efforts to subsidize home broadband subscriptions.

Seven-in-ten U.S. adults say it is at least somewhat likely that their own phone calls and emails are being monitored by the government, including 37% who believe that this type of surveillance is “very likely,” according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in February. Just 13% of the public say it is “not at all likely” that the government is monitoring their communications. These views are prevalent across a number of different demographic groups, but there are some differences based on age, gender and education.

Significant theories of democratic accountability hinge on how political campaigns affect Americans' candidate choices. We argue that the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising on Americans' candidates choices in general elections is zero.

First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact 10-fold. These experiments' average effect is also zero. In both existing and our original experiments, persuasive effects only appear to emerge in two rare circumstances. First, when candidates take unusually unpopular positions and campaigns invest unusually heavily in identifying persuadable voters. Second, when campaigns contact voters long before election day and measure effects immediately---although this early persuasion decays. These findings contribute to ongoing debates about how political elites influence citizens' judgments.

With the growing use of the Internet for information, education, job hunting, and other activities, its economic value increases. The incidence of in-home Internet subscriptions, however, varies across households, and Native American households are less likely than other American households to subscribe to Internet services. The lack of universality has, potentially, enormous consequences for households not subscribing to the Internet. Using descriptive statistics and logistic regressions we find that the growth of U.S. Internet subscriptions may have peaked and exhibited a small decline between 2012 and 2015; technology adoption has reached the third stage of the S-curve. Internet adoption in Native American households, however, may not have fully reached into the third stage. While rural-urban location is a small factor for non-Native American households, it remains a major factor for Native American households.

Future 5G networks aim at providing new high-quality wireless services to meet stringent and case-specific needs of various vertical sectors beyond traditional mobile broadband offerings. 5G is expected to disrupt the mobile communication business ecosystem and open the market to drastically new sharing based network operational models. 5G technical features of network slicing and small cell deployments in higher carrier frequencies will lower the investment barrier for new entrants to deploy local radio access networks and offer vertical specific services in specific areas and allow them lease the remaining required infrastructure on demand from mobile network operators (MNO) or infrastructure vendors.

To realize the full vision of 5G to benefit the society and promote competition, innovation and emergence of new services when the 5G end-to-end network spans across different stakeholders administrative domains, the existing regulations governing the mobile communication business ecosystem are being refined. This paper provides a tutorial overview on how 5G innovations impact mobile communications and reviews the regulatory elements relevant to 5G development for locally deployed networks. This paper expands the recent micro licensing model for local spectrum authorization in future 5G systems and provides guidelines for the development of the key micro licensing elements. This local micro licensing model can open the mobile market by allowing different stakeholders to deploy local small cell networks with locally issued spectrum licenses ensuring pre-defined quality guarantees for the vertical sectors’ case specific needs.

At a time when scientific information is increasingly at the center of public divides, most Americans say they get science news no more than a couple of times per month, and when they do, most say it is by happenstance rather than intentionally, according to a new study by Pew Research Center.

Overall, about a third, 36 percent, of Americans get science news at least a few times a week, three-in-ten actively seek it out, and a smaller portion, 17 percent, do both. And while Americans are most likely to get their science news from general news outlets and say the news media overall do a good job covering science, they consider a handful of specialty sources – documentaries, science magazines, and science and technology museums – as more likely to get the science facts right.