Research

Key Findings

The Data Mapping to Save Mom's Lives Act (S. 3152) would require the Federal Communications Commission to incorporate data on maternal health outcomes into its most recently available broadband health mapping tools. In addition, the bill would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report to the Congress on the effectiveness of Internet connectivity in reducing maternal morbidity rates.

In the state of Connecticut, nearly one-quarter (23%) of Connecticut households do not have high-speed internet subscriptions at home. Connectivity deficits fall hardest on low-income residents, older adults, and communities of color. 36% of households below the state’s median income do not have wireline broadband compared with 11% of all other households. 36% of Connecticut residents age 65 and older do not have wireline broadband at home. 35% of Hispanics lack wireline broadband at home compared with 21% of whites. 34% of African Americans do not have wireline broadband.

Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) released a  report showing the impact of the transformation of news online and the accompanying loss of revenue. The report shows one factor of the revenue loss is the unfair and abusive practices by tech platforms. The impact of these practices indicates the need for Congress to provide the Federal Trade Commission new authority to protect the local news industry. The report closely examines the unfair and abusive practices by major tech platforms that have contributed to the drastic revenue declines.

The causes and impact of a nationwide T-Mobile outage that occurred in June, along with actions that can help prevent similar outages in the future. On June 15, 2020, T-Mobile experienced an outage on its wireless networks that lasted over twelve hours, disrupting calling and texting services nationwide, including 911 service, as well as access to data service in some areas. The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau estimates that at least 41% of all calls on T-Mobile’s network failed during the outage, including at least 23,621 failed calls to 911.

To better understand the impact of network brownouts in the age of COVID-19, Accedian released the findings of its new research measuring the effects of network brownouts on business productivity and end-user experience. Network brownouts are unexpected performance degradations, excessive slowdowns and network congestion that impact application performance (as opposed to full network outages or blackouts). According to the 1,000 US senior IT decision makers surveyed for the research:

This paper introduces the concept of digital parity – similar levels of connectivity, devices, and skills between groups – that can lead to more digital inclusive communities. Utilizing a household survey measuring digital inclusiveness and analysis of variance (ANOVA), findings suggest that there are different levels of digital inclusiveness between groups. Differences in internet use and benefits are larger between younger and older groups. There are also differences between urban and rural areas.

The Public Infrastructure/Private Service model puts the locality in the business of building infrastructure, a business cities and counties know well after a century of building roads, bridges, and utilities. The model leaves to the private sector most aspects of network operations, equipment provisioning, and service delivery. The Public Infrastructure/Private Service model leverages the best capabilities of the public and private sectors.

The E-rate program supports nearly every school and library in America, annually providing billions of dollars of much-needed support for Internet access, telecommunications, and computer networking. Over 21,000 applicants and 4,100 vendors currently participate in the program. For most, their perception of the program is limited to a handful of funding requests and a few personal interactions with USAC customer service representatives. The purpose of this analysis is to provide stakeholders with a broader picture of the E-rate program.

Three notable trends punctuated an especially dismal year for internet freedom.