In an era where internet access is as essential as water and electricity, many residents in Los Angeles remain digitally left behind due to rising costs, poor service quality, and discrimination. This report delves into the growing movement for publicly owned internet services, highlighting successful municipal broadband for all initiatives across the nation. These initiatives have proven effective in increasing access, lowering costs, and fostering stronger community engagement. With Los Angeles at a crossroads, the report examines how adopting municipal broadband could ensure equitable internet access for all, positioning the internet as a fundamental utility and bridging the digital divide. Additionally, the report shines a light on the impact of the discontinuation of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). Through the survey, a noticeable correlation was found between ACP participation and reported difficulties in accessing the internet following the program’s termination. 

When it comes to broadband usage growth rates, downstream is down and upstream is up. While the total volume of downstream and upstream usage continues to climb, the 3Q24 edition of the OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report indicates a continuation of a trend that OpenVault analysis has identified throughout the modern broadband era: With the exception of the pandemic year of 2020, downstream growth rates have slowed each year, while the rate of increase in the upstream has trended steadily upward. The latest edition of the OVBI notes that the growth rate for the downstream slid to 6.8 percent in the third quarter of 2024—the lowest figure since OpenVault began breaking out downstream and upstream data. Upstream growth moved higher to 13.9 percent, a rate of increase that is more than double that of the downstream, despite upstream constraints within the DOCSIS environment. Overall growth was 7.2 percent, OpenVault’s lowest year-over-year rate recorded.

The Justice Department and a group of states asked a federal court to force Google to sell Chrome, its popular web browser, a move that could fundamentally alter the $2 trillion company’s business and reshape competition on the internet. The request follows a landmark ruling in August by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that found Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search. Judge Mehta asked the Justice Department and the states that brought the antitrust case to submit solutions by the end of Nov 20 to correct the search monopoly. Beyond the sale of Chrome, the government asked Judge Mehta to give Google a choice: either sell Android, its smartphone operating system, or bar Google from making its services mandatory on phones that use Android to operate. If Google broke those terms, or the remedies failed to improve competition, the government could force the company to sell Android at a later date. The government also asked the judge to stop Google from entering into paid agreements with Apple and others to be the automatically selected search engine on smartphones and in browsers. Google should also be required by the court to allow rival search engines to display the company’s results and access its data for a decade, the government said. Google is set to file its own suggestions for fixing the search monopoly by Dec. 20. Both sides can modify their requests before Judge Mehta is expected to hear arguments on the remedies this spring. He is expected to rule by the end of the summer.

In the United States, the approach to governing artificial intelligence (AI) is still in its early stages. As policymakers, developers, and civil society work together to navigate an uncertain digital future, encouraging greater openness in the AI model ecosystem will be critical to upholding democratic values, serving the public interest, and promoting innovation. There are five essential aspects of openness that span both technical and non-technical features of models: (1) open code that can be modified, (2) open licenses that enable third-party use, (3) transparency about model inputs, (4) transparency about possible model misuse, and (5) open standards for interconnection among AI models. Promoting these five attributes of openness can create the kind of AI ecosystem that better serves public transparency and democratic accountability, innovation and competition, education and research, and security. We explore the relationship between open AI models and each of these benefits and recommend steps that policymakers, researchers, AI companies, developers, and civil society organizations should take.

Serving at the Federal Communications Commission has been the honor of a lifetime, especially my tenure as Chair and as the first woman in history to be confirmed to lead this agency. I want to thank President Biden for entrusting me with the responsibility to guide the FCC during a time when communications technology is a part of every aspect of civic and commercial life. Taking the oath of office on the street outside of the agency during the height of the pandemic, when so much of our day-to-day moved online, made clear how important the work of the FCC is and how essential it is for us to build a digital future that works for everyone. I am proud to have served at the FCC alongside some of the hardest working and dedicated public servants I have ever known. Together, we accomplished seemingly impossible feats like setting up the largest broadband affordability program in history—which led to us connecting more than 23 million households to high-speed internet, connecting more than 17 million students caught in the homework gap to hotspots and other devices as learning moved online, putting national security and public safety matters with communications front and center before the agency, and launching the first-ever Space Bureau to support United States leadership in the new Space Age. I also want to thank my husband, daughter, and son for their support throughout my time at the FCC.  Public service is not without sacrifice, and I am looking forward to spending more time with my family and rescue pup in the days ahead.