Daily Digest 3/10/2020 (FCC Agenda)

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
Table of Contents

Agenda

Robocall Relief Springs Forward  |  Read below  |  FCC Chairman Ajit Pai  |  Press Release  |  Federal Communications Commission

Broadband/Internet

The US government couldn’t shut down the Internet, right? Think again.  |  Read below  |  FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel  |  Op-Ed  |  Washington Post
How Cleveland is bridging both digital and racial divides  |  Read below  |  Lara Fishbane, Adie Tomer  |  Analysis  |  Brookings Institution
Virus-driven shift to online classes brings home the digital divide  |  Read below  |  Margaret Harding McGill  |  Axios
"Online first" census must navigate digital divide  |  Read below  |  Margaret Harding McGill  |  Axios
Community Anchor Institutions as Launching Pads for High-Performance Broadband Deployment  |  Read below  |  Jonathan Sallet  |  Analysis  |  Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
As coronavirus closes schools and pushes classes online, it’s ‘exposing hard truths about the digital divide,’ FCC commissioner  |  Fortune
Comcast, Charter expand broadband domination as cable hits 67% market share  |  Read below  |  Jon Brodkin  |  Ars Technica

Spectrum/Wireless

MoffettNathanson: Not All Mid-Band Spectrum is Created Equal; Sprint Has the 5G Edge  |  telecompetitor
Charter Now Offering Mobile Customers 5G Through Verizon Deal  |  Multichannel News

Telecom

Data on Voice Telephone Services as of December 31, 2018  |  Federal Communications Commission
Data on Voice Telephone Services as of June 30, 2018  |  Federal Communications Commission

Health

Princeton requires lectures and seminars to go online-only, a temporary move amid covid-19 outbreak  |  Washington Post
Sharing Your Digital Health Data: New Rules Ease Access  |  Wall Street Journal
New Data Rules Could Empower Patients but Undermine Their Privacy  |  New York Times

Emergency Communications

Chairman Pai Remarks to the International Association of Firefighters  |  Read below  |  FCC Chairman Ajit Pai  |  Speech  |  Federal Communications Commission

Elections and Media

‘Internet of things’ could be an unseen threat to elections  |  Conversation, The
Manipulated Biden Video Escalates Online Speech War With president Trump  |  New York Times

Privacy

Secret-sharing app Whisper left users’ locations exposed on the Web  |  Washington Post

Content

Section 230: When policy Becomes Personal  |  Multichannel News

Policymakers

Public Knowledge Welcomes New Chair, Members to Board of Directors  |  Public Knowledge
Digital Democracy: Past, Present, Future An Interview with Vinton G. Cerf Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google  |  Association for Computing Machinery

Stories From Abroad

Facebook sued by Australian information watchdog over Cambridge Analytica-linked data breach  |  Guardian, The
 
Today's Top Stories

Agenda

Robocall Relief Springs Forward

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai  |  Press Release  |  Federal Communications Commission

 At our March meeting, the Federal Communications Commission will therefore vote on new rules requiring implementation of STIR/SHAKEN by June 30, 2021, a deadline set forth in the TRACED Act, which was recently passed by Congress. Under my proposal, the FCC would also seek public input on additional measures to combat spoofed robocalls, including other measures to implement the TRACED Act.

At our March meeting, we are looking not only to spur the deployment of new technologies to make phone service more consumer-friendly, but also to get outdated and unnecessary telephone regulations off the books. In light of the multitude of options that American consumers now have for voice service, I'm proposing to examine whether certain pricing and tariffing regulations that the FCC imposed on incumbent phone companies when they held a monopoly on local telephone service still make sense today. Specifically, I've circulated a proposal to deregulate and detariff what I'm calling "Telephone Access Charges," which are the last handful of interstate end-user charges that remain subject to FCC regulation. Under this proposal, the FCC would also prohibit all carriers from separately listing these charges—an alphabet soup of charges like the Subscriber Line Charge, the Access Recovery Charge, the Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge, the Line Port Charge, and the Special Access Surcharge—on customers' bills. Eliminating these line-item charges would make it easier for consumers to understand their phone bills and compare prices among voice service providers as well as help ensure that a carrier's advertised prices are closer to the prices that consumers actually pay.

We will be rounding out our March agenda with a trio of items from our Media Bureau. The first is a proposal to make it easier for broadcast TV stations to use a distributed transmission system, or DTS. DTS uses multiple transmitter sites within a station's authorized service area, each operating on the same channel, in order to provide better service to the public. Next up, we'll consider a proposal to change the Commission's rules governing the resolution of program carriage disputes between video programming vendors and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). We propose modifications to time-limit requirements for filing complaints and effective dates for decisions by our Administrative Law Judge, which are designed to provide additional clarity to both potential complainants and defendants, as well as adjudicators. Finally, we'll take up a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to examine modernizing the methodology for determining whether a television broadcast station is "significantly viewed" in a community outside of its local television market and thus may be treated as a local station in that community for broadcast signal carriage purposes. 

Internet/Broadband

The US government couldn’t shut down the Internet, right? Think again.

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel  |  Op-Ed  |  Washington Post

You might think it could never happen here in the United States. But think again. To understand how, start with the Communications Act of 1934 — which, though it has been amended and updated several times, is essentially an 86-year-old law that is still the framework for US communications policy today. Section 706 of this law allows the president to shut down or take control of “any facility or station for wire communication” if he proclaims “that there exists a state or threat of war involving the United States.” With respect to wireless communications, suspending service is permitted not only in a “war or a threat of war,” but merely if there is a presidential proclamation of a “state of public peril” or simply a “disaster or other national emergency.” There is no requirement in the law for the president to provide any advance notice to Congress. The language here is undeniably broad. The power it describes is virtually unchecked.  That’s not surprising, since some of the last changes made to this section of the law were introduced in 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when Congress was laser-focused on protecting our safety and security. 

If you believe there are unspoken norms that would prevent a U.S. president from using Section 706 this way, recent history suggests that past practice is no longer the best guide for future behavior. Norms are now broken all the time in Washington. It’s time for a front-to-back assessment of Section 706. We need a dialogue about what it means and what it should mean in the digital age. We need Congress to consider how this power squares with the Constitution and ask what role there should be for the legislative and judicial branches.

How Cleveland is bridging both digital and racial divides

Lara Fishbane, Adie Tomer  |  Analysis  |  Brookings Institution

Cities and states with racial disparities in health and economic status face a choice: Let broadband become just another marker of racial inequity, or make the choice to support and empower communities of color through equal access to affordable broadband and the digital skills to use it. Cleveland (OH) is one city where civic leaders and local activists are working to close the race-based digital divide through a mix of innovative solutions and institutional advocacy. The challenges that they’ve faced and the successes they’ve earned provide lessons for any region up against similar barriers to equitable broadband adoption.

DigitalC shows that a nonprofit can provide disenfranchised communities with an affordable broadband alternative to traditional service providers. The Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center (ASC3) shows that—with consistent support—it’s possible to provide effective digital skills training at scale. And MetroHealth serves as an example of a legacy institution whose mission is furthered by investments in digital capacity and education. Banks, philanthropies, hospitals, and other vital institutions in Cleveland and across the country should follow suit.

Virus-driven shift to online classes brings home the digital divide

Margaret Harding McGill  |  Axios

K-12 schools weighing a shift to online learning in the shadow of the coronavirus are grappling with what to do about kids who don't have internet at home. "I don’t think the schools are adequately prepared to provide online learning to all of their students at home if they have to close for a long period of time," said John Windhausen, executive director of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition. "It could be better than having no school whatsoever, but there are an awful lot of questions about how to do so fairly."

"Online first" census must navigate digital divide

Margaret Harding McGill  |  Axios

The government is encouraging Americans to respond to this year's census online, prompting concerns that millions who lack internet access may not be properly counted. The problem with "online first," Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel believes, is that the Census Bureau may be underestimating the number of Americans without reliable internet access and could end up stretched too thin to properly count those people. Libraries are working to support the online-first census as part of broader efforts to bridge the digital divide in their communities.

Community Anchor Institutions as Launching Pads for High-Performance Broadband Deployment

Jonathan Sallet  |  Analysis  |  Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

In the 2020s, public policy should recognize that bits are books, bits are blackboards, and bits are basic tools of medical practice. In other words, broadband networks that run to schools or libraries or health-care facilities are not built to carry only scholastic or literary or medical information. Community anchor institutions can serve as a launching pad for community-based broadband access and, in places where broadband has already been deployed, more broadband competition. Congress has already provided that past funding recipients of middle-mile networks, like the connections to community anchor institutions that reach into a community but do not reach to residences within a community, must operate on a non-exclusive basis.

[Jonathan Sallet is a Benton Senior Fellow]

Comcast, Charter expand broadband domination as cable hits 67% market share

Jon Brodkin  |  Ars Technica

Led by Comcast and Charter, the cable industry increased its dominance of US home Internet in 2019, finishing the year with a 67-percent market share. Leichtman Research Group's latest broadband-market review found that the top eight cable companies combined to add 3.14 million broadband subscribers in 2019, reaching a total of 67.98 million. Comcast and Charter accounted for most of the total subscribers and most of the gains: Comcast added 1.41 million subscribers in the year to reach 28.63 million, and Charter added 1.41 million to reach 26.66 million. Cox, the third biggest cable company in the Leichtman review, added 110,000 subscribers to hit 5.17 million. The net additions for each company were slightly higher than in 2018. The top eight traditional phone companies, which offer a mix of copper and fiber services, lost a combined 619,605 subscribers to reach a low of 33.24 million in 2019. The top four telecommunication companies—AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, and Frontier—all lost subscribers.

Emergency Communications

Chairman Pai Remarks to the International Association of Firefighters

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai  |  Speech  |  Federal Communications Commission

This past Nov, a bipartisan majority at the Federal Communications Commission adopted a vertical, or “z-axis,” location accuracy metric of plus or minus 3 meters for wireless 911 calls. That means that in the coming years you will be able to more accurately identify the floor-level for most 911 calls and reduce emergency response time.

In addition to our z-axis proceeding, I know that the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) has also taken a keen interest in the T-band. For decades, this spectrum has been used by public safety licensees in 11 of our largest cities. But back in 2012, Congress passed legislation requiring the FCC to reallocate and auction this spectrum. The agency has taken a hard look at the T-band. And we’ve concluded that moving forward with an auction of it wouldn’t be feasible. The costs to relocate public safety licensees to other spectrum would probably be much higher than any potential auction revenue we’d get from companies bidding to win licenses for this spectrum. Because of these concerns, I called on Congress last Dec to repeal the T-band auction mandate. Currently, there are bills pending in Congress that would do just that. I’m hopeful that they can get the job done soon. 

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Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.


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