Influential industry groups are vying to get the Federal Communications Commission to adopt competing proposals for how to map broadband coverage across the country. A consortium of groups and companies including USTelecom, whose members include AT&T, Verizon, and smaller broadband providers, is proposing that the FCC create a new nationwide map -- using satellite imagery, digital land parcel data, and other data sources -- to track all locations that could be served by broadband. USTelecom is running a pilot project in VA and MO that it plans to submit to the FCC later in 2019 to showcase its national potential.

NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, which represents the cable industry including Comcast and Charter, is urging the FCC to change its reporting requirements to include data called shapefiles, which can include subscribers’ addresses, geographic coordinates, and other location information, to make the FCC’s broadband map more accurate.

Microsoft and broadband access advocates are urging the FCC to include more data sources, instead of relying solely on unverified ISP data. It’s also urging the FCC to incorporate subscription data and other third-party data, including its own, to complement the data it receives from ISPs. 

In many states, elected officials are listening to constituents and experts who tell them that they need fast, affordable, reliable connectivity to keep their communities from dwindling. States that refuse funding to public entities, however, block out some of the best opportunities to connect people and businesses in rural areas. In places such as Michigan, Tennessee, and Virginia, states need to trust their own people to develop necessary broadband networks. When states such as TN, VA, and MI purposely deny local governments the right to bring better connectivity to their residents and businesses, they interfere with local matters. 

The Rural eConnectivity Pilot Program (ReConnect Program) through the US Department of Agriculture, makes $600 million available in a combination of grants and loans for rural broadband. In addition to traditional Internet access providers, co-ops, and other traditional broadband providers, tribes, states, local governments and other public entities can apply for funding.  If the federal agency recognizes the intuitive vision of local communities, states need to follow suit.

Arguments used to justify digital services taxes on large Internet companies are flawed. The United States should counter these proposals and work to restore international consensus around tax treatment for multinational companies.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he wished US allies could view a copy of May 14's hearing on 5G cybersecurity to see the uncommon bipartisan agreement that Chinese technology is a threat to the safety and security of the Internet of everything next-gen wireless broadband will drive. The hearing's first panel featured Christopher Krebs, director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Department of Homeland Security, and Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for cyber and international communications and information policy at the State Department. They said the key is for companies and countries to take a "risk-based" assessment of their 5G network buildouts, an assessment that would almost certainly exclude Chinese telecoms. The good news, those officials suggested, was that the four major US wireless carriers had agreed not to employ technology from Huawei, ZTE and other potential security threats. Chairman Graham tried to get the officials to state, plainly, that the US policy with its allies should be that we won't share info or connect to their networks if they include Chinese telecom tech in their 5G networks. The officials would not go quite that far, but likely only because of the practical and diplomatic consequences of such a binary choice.

The Trump Administration’s swift-moving plan to promote 5G networks is running into resistance from the weather-forecasting community. The dispute centers around ultrahigh radio frequencies that the Federal Communications Commission recently auctioned off for use in the country’s next-generation wireless networks. Officials at other agencies, including the Department of Commerce and National Aeronautics and Space Administration, warn that those airwaves—specifically those above 24 gigahertz—could scramble nearby readings from the federal weather satellites that meteorologists use to make storm predictions. The concerns, for now, are theoretical, as cellphone carriers’ early upgrades have focused on other frequencies. But weather researchers worry interference could endanger future forecasts. Scientists warn the FCC’s plan “would substantially impact the accuracy of weather forecasts” used to gauge the risks from hurricanes, tornadoes and other severe weather, according to a recent letter Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) wrote to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space company, is planning to launch 60 of its own satellites in a single launch expected May 15, the first of more than 4,000 spacecraft planned for the Starlink network. If successful, the flight will make SpaceX the frontrunner in a tight race to be the first operator of an internet satellite network, as SpaceX is the only competitor with its own rockets. SpaceX is one of several, including OneWeb, Telesat and even Amazon, that are investing in plans to launch thousands of satellites that aim to deliver internet connections to customers below. All of these plans will require billions of dollars in investment—for factories and for the satellites and ground stations that will need to be built, plus the cost of launches and operations.

From the point of view of physics, using an array of satellites orbiting the planet to provide internet access makes a lot of sense. Practically speaking, the problem has been that launching satellites is just too expensive compared with laying cable here on Earth. But now, the business plan is attractive to investors again, thanks to growing demand for connectivity around the world, alongside cheaper and more powerful satellites. Each of these companies is using an unproven architecture—flying what could eventually be thousands of satellites at altitudes far lower than traditional communications satellites in order to improve connection speeds. And analysts believe the telecom market will not support all of the firms vying to operate high-velocity computers orbiting Earth.

The report condemns the Federal Communications Commission for failing to adequately respond to the September 2017 hurricanes, which knocked out 95 percent of all cell sites, 97 percent of radio stations and all local television stations. The report calls out the agency’s failure to hold wired and wireless carriers to account for neglecting to build resilient networks or respond in a timely or sufficient fashion to restore communications to the islands’ residents. The report urges the FCC to form an independent commission to investigate the communications crisis, which contributed to the deaths of thousands.

Free Press also released the FCC’s initial response to its ongoing Freedom of Information Act request for consumer complaints received from wired and wireless customers in Puerto Rico following the hurricanes’ devastation. The complaints offer a small window into a much larger problem in Puerto Rico, where many of the principal carriers promised automatic refunds and relief for the extensive loss of services but seemingly failed to deliver. The Free Press report and FOIA response reveal a shocking double standard at the Trump FCC, where the agency has failed to investigate and hold carriers accountable for the widespread and prolonged outages following Hurricanes Irma and Maria. By contrast, the FCC conducted a far more rigorous investigation into the communications failures that followed Hurricane Michael, which struck Florida in October 2018. But the FCC has ignored calls to conduct a similar analysis in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Connecting the Dots features the perspectives of people living in Puerto Rico. Free Press worked in partnership with Resilient Just Technologies and the Center for Embodied Pedagogy and Action to collect stories from those in the storm’s path. The report draws from these accounts to call for an independent investigation and propose a series of policy changes for Congress, the FCC and other federal agencies to adopt to fully understand what went wrong and to prevent the islands’ communications networks from collapsing in the future. These recommendations also apply to other parts of the country that suffer from violent storms.

Renewed trade tensions between the US and China threaten to throw Apple back into the global trade battle, putting its iPhone business at risk just as the tech giant appeared to be shoring up declining sales of its most important product. The round of tariff increases that hit May 10 don’t directly affect iPhones, iPads, Macs or Apple Watches. But President Donald Trump recently threatened a tariff of 25% on $325 billion in Chinese imports that haven’t previously been targeted by duties. Those would cover virtually all Chinese exports to the US, including Apple’s most important devices.

AT&T has cut more than 23,000 jobs since receiving a big tax cut at the end of 2017, despite lobbying heavily for the tax cut by claiming that it would create thousands of jobs. AT&T in Nov 2017 pushed for the corporate tax cut by promising to invest an additional $1 billion in 2018, with CEO Randall Stephenson saying that "every billion dollars AT&T invests is 7,000 hard-hat jobs. These are not entry-level jobs. These are 7,000 jobs of people putting fiber in ground, hard-hat jobs that make $70,000 to $80,000 per year." The corporate tax cut was subsequently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on Dec 22, 2017. The tax cut reportedly gave AT&T an extra $3 billion in cash in 2018. But AT&T cut capital spending and kept laying people off after the tax cut. A union analysis of AT&T's publicly available financial statements "shows the telecom company eliminated 23,328 jobs since the Tax Cut and Jobs Act passed in late 2017, including nearly 6,000 in the first quarter of 2019," the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said.