More than 19 million people living in rural America do not have access to broadband, a service as necessary as electricity in today’s digital economy. Microsoft President Brad Smith reiterated his call for a national strategy to close the rural broadband gap and highlighted that this is a problem the country can solve. The Microsoft Airband Initiative launched in July 2017 with the goal of working with partners to make broadband available to 2 million Americans in rural communities who lack access today and to help catalyze an ecosystem to connect millions more. After the success of the initiative’s first year, Smith announced that Microsoft is raising its goal for the program and increasing the company’s commitment. The program will reach 3 million Americans in rural communities by July 4, 2022, and is adding additional states, bringing the total to 25 states served by this time in 2019. The new states include CA, IN, MS, OK, and WV. The Microsoft Airband Initiative partners with internet service providers that are using a mix of technologies to close the rural broadband gap. This includes TV white spaces, which provides an economical wireless solution for rural areas. 

Smith also called attention to the need for better broadband maps. "We can’t solve a problem that we don’t understand. There is strong evidence that the percentage of Americans without broadband access is much higher than the FCC’s numbers indicate." Smith also wrote he was, “encouraged by the recent strides taken by the FCC toward collecting better data."

It seems counterintuitive that a phone line could be a "speaker." But the cable industry very much wants to ensure that the act of transmitting speech from Point A to Point B is protected by the First Amendment, so that making a cable connection carry any speech it isn’t interested in amounts to unconstitutional “forced speech.” The addition of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court roster gives the industry a significant boost. In a 2017 DC Circuit dissenting opinion, Justice Kavanaugh made it clear that he supports giving internet access providers "speaker" privileges, saying that "the First Amendment bars the Government from restricting the editorial discretion of Internet service providers." Right now, the cable industry is unquestionably operating a service that customers view as a utility. But it is subject to vanishingly few obligations. And now it wants to ensure that it will be wrapped in the Constitution if the government ever tries to change this situation. This should be intolerable.

[Susan Crawford is a professor at Harvard Law School]

I’m pleased to note that the Americas region continues to work hard and steadily advance regional proposals for the 2019 International Telecommunication Union World Radio Conference. We are deeply focused on the WRC-19. We’ll need to work together to set the course for the future of 5G, as we seek to promote a dynamic, global communications marketplace. And speaking of working together, in Nov the Federal Communications Commission took a big step towards increased international cooperation by letting American consumers use Galileo, the European Union’s radionavigation satellite service. 

The other topic I’d like to briefly highlight is artificial intelligence and machine learning.  AI also holds the potential to help bridge the digital divide, which is the FCC’s top priority. We heard Nov 30 about efforts to use AI to more efficiently build and operate communications networks and manage spectrum, which should result in more access for more people at lower cost. Bridging the digital divide through AI, machine learning, and other emerging technologies will help all Americans benefit from the digital revolution, regardless of who they are or where they live. That is something every citizen can appreciate.

The House GOP campaign arm suffered a major hack during the 2018 election, exposing thousands of sensitive emails to an outside intruder, according to three senior party officials. The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) were surveilled for several months, apparently. The intrusion was detected in April by an NRCC vendor, who alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor. An internal investigation was initiated and the FBI was alerted to the attack.

However, senior House Republicans — including Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) — were not informed of the hack until Politico contacted the NRCC on Dec 3 with questions about the episode. Rank-and-file House Republicans were not told, either. Committee officials said they decided to withhold the information because they were intent on conducting their own investigation, and feared that revealing the hack would compromise efforts to find the culprit. Party officials would not say when the hack began or who was behind it, although they privately believe it was a foreign agent due to the nature of the attack.

Democrats on the House Commerce Committee are pushing back on a report by the Federal Communications Commission Inspector General finding no evidence of a "concealment or cover-up" by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in communications with the White House regarding the failed Sinclair-Tribune merger. “While we appreciate the Inspector General’s office looking into this matter, we do not agree with its finding that Pai did not need to disclose this information in the public docket based on his commitment to Ranking Member [Frank] Pallone,” a Democratic panel spokesman said. Rep. Pallone asked Chairman Pai to commit to publicly disclosing White House discussions about the merger at a congressional oversight hearing July 25. Chairman Pai agreed, but didn't mention an earlier July conversation with then-White House counsel Don McGahn until a Senate hearing in August. The report notes commission rules wouldn't require disclosure of the conversation with McGahn in the public docket. Investigators also didn't find evidence of other communications between the White House and FCC staff on the deal. An FCC spokesman said the agency is pleased with the findings by the IG.

A Treasury-led task force is proposing that the US Postal Service charge more for certain package deliveries, going after Amazon and other online retailers that President  Donald Trump has said benefit at the post office’s expense. The task force’s report recommends:

• USPS be able to charge market-based prices for mail and package items that aren’t deemed essential services
• raising prices for many types of commercial package deliveries, a growing business for the Postal Service
• the Postal Service correctly assess the costs it incurs in delivering packages for companies like Amazon because it hasn’t sufficiently updated its formula to reflect the rapid rise in package volumes and the decline in mail volumes
• rethinking the definition of what qualifies for the Postal Service’s so-called universal-service obligation, a legal requirement that it deliver everywhere in the US