July 18 marks a major milestone on the long road to right a market dysfunction that has wronged incarcerated persons and their loved ones for decades.  The Federal Communications Commission’s vote on Bringing Common Sense and Fairness to Correctional Facility Phone Rates will lower rates for voice phone calls including, perhaps most importantly, local and intrastate calls.  Among the many other long overdue reforms, the agency’s Report and Order will end kickbacks, euphemistically called “site commissions,” to carceral facilities.  No less significantly, the new measures are forward-looking, giving the FCC the power to regulate video calls and other emerging technologies. I have nothing but praise for Chairwoman Rosenworcel and her fellow Commissioners who moved this item forward, and the hard-working FCC staff for crafting forceful rules that are faithful to the goals of the new law. 

The Federal Communications Commission proposed that the agency require mobile service providers to unlock customers’ mobile phones within 60 days of activation. Expanded unlocking requirements would establish a clear and uniform set of requirements for all mobile service providers. New unlocking rules would allow consumers the freedom to take their existing phones and switch from one mobile service provider to another more easily, as long as the consumer’s phone is compatible with the new provider’s wireless network. Mobile phone unlocking can increase consumer choice and competition in the mobile service provider marketplace. Updated unlocking rules would give consumers more flexibility when switching service providers, increase competition among service providers, and reduce customer confusion by applying the same unlocking rules to all service providers.

The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Third Report and Order furthering its efforts to enable individuals with disabilities to access video programming through closed captioning. The Order adopts a “readily accessible” requirement for closed captioning display settings. The Commission previously adopted requirements that users must be able to customize caption displays by changing the font, size, color, and other caption features, but many consumers have had difficulty accessing these caption display settings. The Order takes steps to alleviate this problem by ensuring that users are able to customize captions to fit their needs. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announces 97 communities that have been selected to participate in the ConnectHomeUSA (CHUSA) initiative, bringing training and technical assistance to help communities access affordable internet access, affordable devices, and digital skills training. These communities have been selected based on their demonstrated commitment to bridging the digital divide for HUD-assisted residents. This phase of ConnectHomeUSA has expanded its reach to include not only Public Housing Authorities (PHAs), Tribally Designated Housing Entities (TDHEs), and Multifamily housing providers but also HUD Continuum of Care (CoC) and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) grantees.

There’s been much handwringing this year over the prospect of defaults in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program, but very little empirical analysis of the actual extent of default that has occurred to date or data-driven projections of what’s likely to occur in the future. It’s time to dig deeper to figure out what’s going on at the local level. The FCC authorized 379 companies to receive $6 billion in RDOF support over a ten-year term, covering just under 3.5 million locations in 48 states and one territory. Companies receive funding to serve a specified number of locations in eligible census blocks, which were grouped together for purposes of auction bidding into eligible census block groups. As of July 10th, only 16 out of 379 authorized recipients have defaulted, but in many instances, they have only defaulted on some (not all) of their authorized locations. While defaulting parties have specified the census block groups for which they are defaulting—and the FCC has promptly announced which corresponding census blocks are no longer subject to an enforceable commitment to deploy broadband, which opens up those areas for other funding programs—the FCC has not published a list showing the relevant number of locations associated with defaulted census blocks. Nor am I aware of any outside party that has undertaken a systematic attempt to figure this out.

[Carol Mattey is a former senior official from the Federal Communications Commission, where she led teams working on initiatives to modernize the FCC’s $9 billion Universal Service Fund to support broadband. She currently is the principal of Mattey Consulting LLC, which provides strategic and public policy advisory services to broadband providers and other entities seeking funding for broadband.]

San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont (CA) all received a federal grant for $32 million to expand their internet access. The grant is hoping to serve people who lack fast internet service, and create more options for accessing the web. The grant comes from a program by the California Public Utilities Commission to expand broadband infrastructure across the state for underserved communities. San Francisco will focus on using the $10 million to expand internet access in the Bayview, Chinatown, and Tenderloin neighborhoods. The city is hoping to give access to around 5700 residents. But that’s not all, as part of the fund, the city is considering giving free internet to low-income households. Specifically, people living in affordable housing, single occupancy hotels, and other places that lack fast and cost friendly internet options. Small businesses would also be included as a part of this initiative.

An interesting article by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) documents an economic rebound in left-behind counties. Economists, researchers, and politicians have used the term left-behind counties to denote the parts of the country that have experienced economic stagnation or decline compared to the national average. Between 2020 and 2023, left-behind counties have seen a turnaround and collectively grew four times faster than the four previous years. Since 2020, the rate of new business start-ups in left-behind counties is almost the same as the rest of the country. Interestingly, the rural left-behind counties are growing faster than suburban and urban counties. The analysis doesn’t speculate on the reasons for the rebound in many left-behind counties. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence, but I think some of this rebound is related to broadband.This is pure speculation on my part, and it would be an interesting thing for economists to investigate. Left-behind counties, by definition, have fewer job opportunities than more affluent counties. But I think folks are no longer being held captive by a poor local economy and are finding ways to make a living online.

As people increasingly look to trade jobs in pursuit of more financial stability (without debilitating debt), one role worth considering is the broadband technician, according to Keith Busby. Currently a service technician for AT&T, Busby largely works on fiber installation, maintenance and splicing. He's an industry veteran with over two decades of experience and has watched telecom technology evolve from the dial-up days to the fiber-optic frenzy that has become the bedrock of modern internet today. Through that evolution, he has seen firsthand how crucial adaptability is in the field. “The technology changes, the equipment's changing, the testing equipment is changing. You have to be open to that,” he advised. “If you don't like change, [broadband] is probably not for you.” But for those ready to adapt to the evolving ecosystem and eager to solve hands-on problems, he believes the position offers more than a simple summer job. 

In January 2023, Spencer Chretien—a former Special Assistant to President Donald J. Trump and Associate Director of Presidential Personnel—introduced Project 2025, an effort organized by the Heritage Foundation "to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right." At the time, some 45 right-of-center organizations were working together on "restoring this country through the combination of the right policies and well-trained people." One pillar of Project 2025 is Heritage's 180-day Transition Playbook—called Mandate for Leadership—which includes a transition plan for each federal agency. Heritage warns that few appointments to federal independent regulatory agencies will be as important as the President’s selection of the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote the playbook chapter on the FCC. The chapter does not purport to set forth a comprehensive agenda for the FCC. Rather, it focuses on selected issue areas that may quickly rise to the attention of a new Administration. The four identified policy priorities are:

1. Reining in Big Tech
2. Protecting America’s National Security
3. Unleashing Economic Prosperity
4. Holding Government Accountable

J.D. Vance, the Ohio GOP senator announced as Donald Trump's running mate for the presidency, isn't expected to have a broad impact on US telecommunications policies. But he could have something to say about how the country helps consumers afford access to critical broadband services. That's the early assessment from Blair Levin, a former FCC chief of staff who currently serves as a policy analyst for New Street Research. While Vance will likely go along with and advocate for Trump's policies, "[m]any factors suggest that Vance will have a minimal influence on policy," Levin explained in a research note issued earlier today. For example, some industry watchers are concerned that a new Trump administration could pause the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. However, US VPs, as a historical matter, "rarely have a material influence on policy," Levin wrote. "As a political matter, Trump did not choose Vance for any of his policy views but rather for effectiveness as an advocate for Trump."

Access to information is riding a turbulent sea of costs, technology shifts, and ever-rising requirements for digital connectivity. Although the notion of information as a foundation of democracy seems commonplace in the United States, it took the COVID-19 pandemic to drive home the disarray of access around the country and across the globe. The broader subject of the “digital divide” has received a lot of attention as a proxy for ideas around digital access. Understanding of the divide has evolved alongside the internet itself. The concept of a digital divide drove a great deal of scholarly and policy work examining capacities to engage in mediated work and educational opportunities, and worries about equity undergirded those inquiries. In a collection of articles we begin to grapple with some of the fine-grained issues around access.

Although broadband internet access is a functional prerequisite for modern civic and economic life, significant inequities in broadband access remain. The Federal Communications Commission’s most recent report on the state of broadband in America (2021 Broadband Deployment Report) finds that millions of Americans lack access to reliable broadband service, and that millions more must procure broadband service from a local monopolist. U.S. policymakers have deployed a range of programs to address these concerns. Given the scale and importance of policy interventions like the Connect America Fund (CAF) and the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, it is critical to assess their efficacy. We find that the serviceability rate — i.e., the weighted fraction of CAF-funded addresses that are actually served by subsidized ISPs — is only 55 percent, dropping to as low as 18 percent in some states. Moreover, the compliance rate — i.e., the weighted fraction of CAF-funded addresses where ISPs offer service that satisfies the FCC’s program rules — is only 33 percent. In short, over two-thirds of addresses “certified” as served by the ISPs do not, in fact, appear to receive service that meets the FCC’s program rules. Regulators should interrogate ISPs’ service claims, improve audit transparency, and implement stringent requirements to ensure better service quality and consumer value. And officials might even consider past compliance with funding programs when deciding how to award subsidies in the future.

In March 2021, President Biden announced the American Jobs Plan, a precursor to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act designed to kick-start the U.S. economy amid the global coronavirus pandemic. As part of the announcement, the President made a prophetic statement: “broadband is the new electricity.” Comparing the Internet and electricity connected the dots between a centuries-long experiment in universal access. It invokes questions of which technologies, utilities, and services are so crucial to contemporary life that the government has a moral, ethical, and legal obligation to make them accessible to everyone. In this one statement, President Biden placed broadband within a select list of other universal access priorities over the history of the United States, including the postal service, telephone, education, and yes, electricity. The story of universal broadband also illustrates two much larger, normative problems when it comes to universal service: how to define it and how to pay for it.