The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) released updated data on fixed broadband deployment and mobile voice and broadband deployment as of December 31, 2017. These data were collected through FCC Form 477 and are available on the FCC's website. Fixed Deployment Data are available at https://www.fcc.gov/general/broadbanddeployment-data-fcc-form-477 and Mobile Deployment Data are available at https://www.fcc.gov/mobile-deployment-form-477-data. The fixed broadband data include revisions made by filers through November 13, 2018, while the mobile deployment data include revisions made by filers through June 13, 2018.

In 2016, Free Press released Digital Denied, which showed that disparities in broadband adoption — commonly known as the digital divide —stem not only from income inequality, but from systemic racial discrimination. The report found that nearly half of all people in the country without home-internet access were people of color. Much of that gap was indeed the result of income inequality. People of color generally have far lower average incomes than White people, and low-income families often cannot afford to subscribe to home broadband. But even when we accounted for these differences of income and other demographic factors like education and employment, a racial digital divide still persisted. Even among the same income brackets, Blacks and Hispanics still  lagged behind Whites in broadband adoption. Since the report’s release, further research has demonstrated the need for affordable options — but has devoted little attention to the impact of racial inequities. But instead of trying to fix it, our policymakers have sent a signal that mobility crumbs are good enough for people of color who can’t afford expensive wired services or can’t clear the credit-check hurdle — even though mobile broadband is less reliable, less robust and sometimes subject to restrictive data caps.

The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Managing Director (OMD) announces that the proposed universal service contribution factor for the first quarter of 2019 will be 0.200 or 20.0 percent. Total Projected Collected Interstate and International End-User Telecommunications Revenues for First Quarter 2019: $12.289162 billion.

Sen Joe Manchin (D-wV) has placed a hold on Commissioner Brendan Carr's renomination to the Federal Communications Commission in response to the FCC’s decision to pause a program that would fund wireless internet expansion in rural areas. Sen Manchin announced the hold on Carr's renomination a week after FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the agency’s Mobility Fund Phase II program would be suspended temporarily while regulators investigate whether major wireless carriers submitted false data on their coverage maps.

Sen Manchin said that “inaccurate” maps are not a good enough reason to put the funds on hold. “Last week the FCC finally recognized that their broadband maps were inaccurate,” Sen Manchin said. “That’s something that I have been saying since day one. But the answer is not to put the Mobility Fund on an indefinite hold that prevents states like West Virginia from receiving the funding they desperately need to deploy mobile broadband.”

This paper explores the connection between corporate social responsibility and social media safety. By examining the legal framework governing social platforms in the United States and case studies of online harms, we explore whether current US laws and company content moderation policies are effective in eliminating content (revenge porn and acts of terrorism) that is universally agreed to be harmful. Finally, the paper makes a number of suggestions for improvements in policy.

The Department of Justice has reached a settlement with Nexstar Media Group, one of the largest owners of television stations in the country, as part of its ongoing investigation into exchanges of competitively sensitive information in the broadcast television industry. The Department filed an amended complaint in the case United States v. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., et al., adding Nexstar Media Group Inc. as a defendant.  At the same time, the Department filed a proposed settlement with Nexstar that, if approved by the court, would resolve the competitive harm alleged in the complaint.  The Department filed its original complaint in the case on Nov. 13, 2018, along with proposed settlements with six other television broadcasting companies.

According to the amended complaint, Nexstar agreed with other entities in many metropolitan areas across the United States to exchange revenue pacing information, and also engaged in the exchange of other forms of non-public sales information in certain metropolitan areas.  Pacing compares a broadcast station’s revenues booked for a certain time period to the revenues booked in the same point in the previous year.  Pacing indicates how each station is performing versus the rest of the market and provides insight into each station’s remaining spot advertising for the period. By exchanging pacing information, Nexstar and other broadcasters were better able to anticipate whether their competitors were likely to raise, maintain, or lower spot advertising prices, which in turn helped inform their stations’ own pricing strategies and negotiations with advertisers.  As a result, the information exchanges harmed the competitive price-setting process.

The proposed settlement prohibits the direct or indirect sharing of such competitively sensitive information.

Gigi Sohn, a leading public advocate for the concept that broadband Internet should be open, affordable, and competitive, has joined the board of directors of the Electronic Fronteir Foundation. A lawyer and innovator who has both counseled and stood up to the Federal Communications Commission—albeit not always at the same time—Sohn has fearlessly worked for over 30 years to make US communications networks accessible to all consumers and protective of user privacy. 

As counselor to former FCC Chairman  Tom Wheeler from 2013 to 2016, Gigi played a big role in the FCC’s adoption of the strongest-ever net neutrality rules, earning recognition in the tech press as one of the “Heroes Who Saved the Internet.” Gigi helped co-found Public Knowledge (PK), the nation’s leading nonprofit representing consumer interests in telecommunications policy, and served as its president from 2001 to 2013. She is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate. Gigi has been a fellow at Mozilla and the Open Society Foundation.