Thursday, April 25, 2019
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Millions of refugees need broadband, too
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A group of senior communications experts, working with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, released its “Global Broadband Plan for Refugee Inclusion.” The detailed report calls for “all refugees, and the communities that host them, to have access to available, affordable and usable mobile and internet connectivity.” At first glance, the idea of devoting scarce resources to ensuring refugees can go online may sound misguided. No one would dispute that the world’s 68.5 million refugees require, first and foremost, much more basic support, such as food, shelter and safety. But according to Blair Levin, the plan’s principal author, access to information and communications is a growing priority. ”Our research shows that refugees see connectivity as a critical survival tool, and are willing to make large sacrifices to get connected,” Levin said. “Further, connectivity facilitates innovations — such as using secured digital cash-based support— that improve the delivery of essential services and accelerate the refugees’ return to self-reliance."
A group of direct service providers, advocates, public interest groups and a Lifeline subscriber met separately with advisors to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai, Commissioner Rosenworcel and her advisor, advisors to Commissioners Starks, Carr and O’Rielly, and Wireline Competition Bureau staff on April 18, 2019 to discuss the impacts of the 2017 Lifeline proposals and to request the FCC terminate the proceeding. They claimed the FCC’s 2017 proceeding has created uncertainty in the Lifeline program by proposing to eliminate large classes of Lifeline providers from the program and restrict eligible recipients’ ability to participate by imposing a co-pay and arbitrary budget cap. They also requested the return of the Lifeline broadband provider designation and a return to the 2016 Modernization Order, and suggested the FCC review several implementation decisions in the California Lifeline program for possible incorporation into the federal program.
The lion’s share of discussion around the digital divide has centered around access, but the prices rural consumers are paying for the services available to them are worth paying attention to as well. According to our research, roughly 146 million rural Americans do not have access to a low-priced plan for wired broadband internet. That’s nearly 45 percent of the US population. We define “low-priced” as a broadband plan with a monthly cost less than or equal to the 20th percentile of all plan prices, or around $60 per month. Rural homes are paying more for slower speeds, and it serves to illustrate that the issues surrounding the digital divide are worse than we perceive them to be.
So, what can be done to improve the current state of rural broadband internet access? One immediate step toward achieving this goal involves improving the process by which coverage reporting happens. Communities, for their part, can invest in programs that foster competition, such as municipal broadband operations and “dig once” policies. Finally, new subsidies are necessary in order to help bring vital infrastructure improvements to underserved (and unserved) areas.
[Tyler Cooper is a Consumer Policy Expert at BroadbandNow]
Residents in Falmouth (MA), like residents in many communities in Massachusetts, have begun to look toward fiber as a means to ensure faster and more reliable Internet service. Falmouth would be the first Cape Cod town to build a municipally owned fiber-optic network. Similar projects in towns across MA are underway or completed. Westfield Gas & Electric’s Whip City Fiber division is in the process of connecting 20 small rural towns to a fiber-optic network in Western MA. The fiber is already live in Alford and Otis. More than 150 town-owned networks in the United States offer up to one gigabit of service.
Arkansas is the least connected of the 50 states. Since 2011, the state has banned cities and towns from building their own networks, outlawing a local solution that has been hailed as an effective way for communities to connect themselves when they don’t have internet providers. In 2019, however, AR appears to be having a change of heart. Under the weight of constituent complaints about lousy internet—and after years of waiting for subsidies to goad telecommunication giants into expanding the infrastructure—the state legislature in Feb passed a bill to repeal its ban. Gov Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) said he will sign it. Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Christopher Mitchell sees the change in AR as a milestone: It’s a red state, and constituent concerns overrode telecommunication interests and ideology.
Local communities in the state of Mississippi have the legal authority to develop publicly owned Internet networks and offer broadband, or any other utility, to the general public. When it comes to bonding in order to financing deployment for broadband infrastructure, however, the law isn’t as cut and dry. In order to stay on the right side of the law, the community of Columbus (MS) decided to obtain permission from the state legislature to issue bonds for a $2.75 million expansion of their existing fiber optic network. Things didn’t work out as well as they had hoped, thanks to powerful lobbying influence in Jackson (MS).
The disadvantages inherent to rural towns – geography, low population density and lack of fiber density – compound one another to make sourcing middle-mile transport unusually difficult for rural municipalities. In addition, incumbents that might provide backhaul generally aren’t thrilled with the prospect of losing market share. They may view municipal network initiatives as competitive threats and resist working with municipalities on sourcing middle-mile transport and/or lobby to fight them in their quest to modernize. The good news is that despite these challenges, over the last several years costs for backhaul services have decreased and are no longer major deterrents for municipalities. Instead, navigating tricky relationships, finding fiber resources, and managing the overall complexities in the fight to modernize have become more problems of logistics and expertise – still often a daunting task for most municipalities that already face many challenges and complexities in building and operating fiber networks.
[Offir Schwartz is president and founder of Capcon Networks, which delivers advanced connectivity solutions to service providers]
One of the first decisions a community needs to make in bringing broadband to residents is what sort of network to operate. Should the network be closed, with one Internet service provider providing service to residents; open and lit, providing the basic infrastructure for potentially competing ISPs; or open with dark fiber leased to competing ISPs? All three models have their proponents and detractors. In my experience and opinion, no one model is ideal for every community. Each option impacts how a community will build and operate a network, and each has advantages and disadvantages. Which is best for a community depends upon factors such as population density, the time and energy the community can afford to invest in managing the solution, and its risk tolerance.
[Trevor Jones is vice president of marketing, sales and customer service for OTELCO, which owns independent telephone companies in seven states and partners with several community networks in MA]
Wireless
MoffetNathanson Analysts Question Verizon 5G Spectrum Strategy: Company Needs Mid-Band Spectrum, But Where Will It Come From?
Verizon needs mid-band spectrum for 5G, but could have difficulty obtaining it, argues a new research note from telecom financial analysts at MoffettNathanson. Verizon 5G spectrum strategy has emphasized high-frequency millimeter wave spectrum for both fixed and mobile services, but according to the analysts, “millimeter wave spectrum is suited for a supporting, not a starring role.” AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon have all said they plan to use a combination of millimeter wave and lower-frequency spectrum to support 5G, but Verizon executives on numerous occasions have emphasized the benefits of the millimeter wave band, which is expected to support the highest 5G speeds but over relatively short distances. Distance limitation are expected to increase deployment costs in that band — although Verizon has downplayed those concerns, arguing that it will be able to use much of its existing wireless network infrastructure to support 5G in the millimeter wave band.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said the company’s first 5G customers are businesses that are using 5G as a replacement for their wired local area network (LAN) technology. “Right now, from 5G what we’re seeing is exclusively businesses,” said Stephenson. “It’s serving as a LAN replacement product.” Business customers are installing a 5G router, but when more devices start showing up on the market with embedded 5G modems, “then you don’t even need the router,” he said. Stephenson noted that business customers pay more for higher speeds in AT&T’s fixed line offerings, and the company expects the same to hold true with 5G. Ultimately, the company expects a 5G “pricing regime” that will look similar to its fixed-line pricing regime. But it doesn’t expect that to play out for two to three years.
In the age of technological innovation, people of color find themselves embattled with upholding the same fight for equal rights. This time, the fight is online and offline. One such area is algorithmic bias. Algorithms are quantitative data, a process or set of rules involving mathematical calculations that produces more data that helps people make decisions. Algorithmic bias (machine learning bias) or AI bias, is a systematic error in the coding, collection, or selection of data that produces unintended or unanticipated discriminatory results. Algorithmic bias is perpetuated by data scientists who train algorithms based on patterns found in historical data. These bias results are then used by humans to make decisions with implications that are systematically prejudiced towards communities of color.
[Dominique Harrison is a Senior Project Manager at the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program]
Compared with the US public overall, which voices are represented on Twitter? The analysis indicates that the 22 percent of American adults who use Twitter are representative of the broader population in certain ways, but not others. Twitter users are younger, more likely to identify as Democrats, more highly educated, and have higher incomes than US adults overall. Twitter users also differ from the broader population on some key social issues. For instance, Twitter users are somewhat more likely to say that immigrants strengthen rather than weaken the country and to see evidence of racial and gender-based inequalities in society. But on other subjects, the views of Twitter users are not dramatically different from those expressed by all US adults. The 10 percent of users who are most active in terms of tweeting are responsible for 80 percent of all tweets created by US users.
Local franchising officials don't want the Federal Communications Commission to cut cable operators some new tech slack when it comes to how they send mandatory notifications to customers about service and rate changes. The FCC is considering whether to allow notifications by electronic means other than e-mails, like texts or app-based notifications or via the TV. It has concluded that notice must not simply be any method "reasonably calculate" to reach subscribers. The National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) told the FCC in recent comments that "While it may be the case, as NCTA -the Internet & Television Association asserts, that cable operators currently send 'millions of texts each month to their customers on a wide variety of matters,' this does not support the idea that mandatory written notices should be one of those texts." NATOA has issues with notifications that can't be easily printed out and saved, it said.
This report profiles six key trends, six significant challenges, and six developments in educational technology for higher education.
- Trends: Redesigning Learning Spaces; Blended Learning Designs; Advancing Cultures of Innovation; Growing Focus on Measuring Learning; Rethinking How Institutions Work; and Modularized and Disaggregated Degrees
- Challenges: Improving Digital Fluency Increasing; Demand for Digital Learning Experience and Instructional Design Expertise; The Evolving Roles of Faculty with Ed Tech Strategies; Achievement Gap; Advancing Digital Equity; and Rethinking the Practice of Teaching
- Developments: Mobile Learning; Analytics Technologies; Mixed Reality; Artificial Intelligence; Blockchain; and Virtual Assistants
I worked on the Federal Communications Commission’s 2016 Broadband Privacy Rules, upon which L.D. 946, An Act to Protect Privacy of Online Customer Personal Information, is based. I urge the Joint Committee and the legislature to pass L.D. 946 without delay. It is common sense legislation that would require broadband Internet access providers operating in the state to protect the privacy of their customers. L.D. 946 would ensure that broadband customers have meaningful choice, greater transparency and strong security protections for their personal information collected by ISPs. And while the bill gives consumers control over how their data is used, it doesn’t prohibit broadband providers from using or sharing customer information, allowing them flexibility to innovate. Maine has been a national leader in protecting the privacy of its residents. It has passed laws protecting prescription data, health data, library records and data on victims of domestic violence. This legislature passed one of the most comprehensive statutes requiring law enforcement to get warrants for cellphone information, including the content of messages and location tracking data.
Apparently, the National Security Agency has recommended that the White House abandon a US surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone calls and text messages, saying the logistical and legal burdens of keeping it outweigh its intelligence benefits. The recommendation against seeking the renewal of the once-secret spying program amounts to an about-face by the agency, which had long argued in public and to congressional overseers that the program was vital to the task of finding and disrupting terrorism plots against the US. The latest view is rooted in a growing belief among senior intelligence officials that the spying program provides limited value to national security and has become a logistical headache. Frustrations about legal-compliance issues forced the NSA to halt use of the program earlier in 2019. Its legal authority will expire in Dec unless Congress reauthorizes it. It is up to the White House, not the NSA, to decide whether to push for legislation to renew the phone-records program. The White House hasn’t yet reached a policy decision about the surveillance program, apparently.
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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