Friday, July 26, 2024
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NTIA Offering Grants So You Can Help Get Covered Populations Online
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How 23 Million Americans Are Adjusting to Life Without the Affordable Connectivity Program
Exacerbating the divide? Investigating rural inequalities in high speed broadband availability
To Reduce Disability Bias in Technology, Start With Disability Data
Broadband Funding
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Digital Divide
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Internet Governance
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Spectrum/Wireless
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Disability Data
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Net Neutrality
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Broadcasting
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Stories From Abroad
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On July 24, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced the availability of nearly $1 billion to fund programs that ensure communities have access to devices and skills needed to fully participate in the digital world, regardless of their background or circumstances. NTIA released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program, an initiative created by Congress in the Digital Equity Act of 2021 (a part of the larger Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). The Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program will support applications that further one or more of the following goals:
- economic stability, including workforce development and employment opportunities;
- access to quality education;
- access to healthcare;
- social and civic engagement; and
- community access to the benefits of Internet technology.
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The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved Massachusetts' Initial Proposals for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Internet for All” initiative. This approval enables Massachusetts to request access to funding and begin implementation of the BEAD program. The BEAD program is a $42.45 billion state grant program authorized by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Massachusetts was allocated over $147 million to deploy or upgrade high-speed Internet networks to ensure that everyone has access to reliable, affordable, high-speed Internet service.
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We're in the thick of the process to distribute $42.5 billion of government funds to companies that will ultimately win Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds. Carol Mattey, a former deputy bureau chief with the Federal Communications Commission who now works as a broadband consultant said a handful of states, that are early in the game, are allowing pre-qualification applications for BEAD grants. Some of the states doing this include Missouri, Montana, Wyoming and Louisiana. Since none of the states have opened their grant application windows, it’s unknown what the actual applications will look like. To make it more complicated, each state’s application will probably be different. However, seventy-five percent of the scoring that will determine BEAD sub-grantee winners are factors that have been pre-determined by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
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For as long as the internet has existed, there’s been a gap between those who have access to it—and the means to afford it—and those who don’t. The vast majority of federal broadband spending over the past two decades has gone toward expanding internet access to rural areas. Only $14.2 billion went to making the internet more affordable through the Affordable Connectivity Program. Some 13% of ACP subscribers, or roughly 3 million households, said that after the program ended they planned to cancel service, according to a Benton Institute for Broadband & Society survey conducted as the ACP expired. Most people who used the ACP won’t cut their internet subscriptions—they’ll just feel their already-strained budgets stretched a little thinner. In Benton’s survey, 56% of low-income households said a monthly bill up to $75 was too expensive; the average monthly internet bill they reported was $66.53. In other words, there’s very little wiggle room for these households before internet costs become unaffordable. “The ACP helped close the digital divide, but it also addressed this issue of subscription vulnerability,” said John Horrigan, senior fellow at the Benton Institute. “I think it's sometimes underappreciated how the ACP has helped with maintaining connectivity among low-income households, lessening this falling off the network from time to time due to economic issues.”
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For several years now, a well-funded litigation group has sought an appellate court decision deeming the current method of funding the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund unconstitutional. The litigants finally hit paydirt in an enbanc appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled in their favor on a 9-7 vote. The litigants ostensibly expressed concerns about constitutional rights, economic freedom, what constitutes a tax, how specific a congressional delegation of authority has to be, and the extent to which the FCC could lawfully delegate administration of the USF to the Universal Service Administrative Company. The Fifth Circuit decision reeks of partisan, doctrinal overreach. The majority, emboldened by recent Supreme Court decisions to eliminate reliance on regulatory agency expertise, blows up the USF subsidy mechanism that has achieved significant progress towards universal service. The irony is that telecommunications companies will regret losing a generous subsidy and I expect them to lobby for a resurrection of the program, with even more explicit, unambiguous language now required by the Supreme Court.
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Although the urban–rural digital divide is a globally common phenomenon, less is known about the social determinants of the digital divide within rural and urban areas. Understanding this relationship is important for assessing the equity implications of telecommunication policy given the ongoing and significant public investment into high speed broadband infrastructure. This paper contributes to this discussion by connecting high speed broadband maps in Ireland to measures of social deprivation constructed from detailed population-wide Irish census data collected in 2022. Linking to newly available maps of urban boundaries, the results show that the availability of commercially provided high speed broadband is highly divided; urban areas have near complete coverage, whereas rural areas have little to no coverage. Exploring determinants of coverage in rural areas, we observe that coverage increases with affluence. This suggests that rural areas, which are relatively socially deprived, are being further disadvantaged through inequalities in the availability of high speed broadband.
House Commerce Republicans Open Inquiry into NTIA’s Online Domain Name Registry Contracts Ahead of Renewal
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In a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Reps Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Bob Latta (R-OH), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) requested information about the agency’s internet domain name registry agreement with Verisign. “With both a role in advising ICANN and as a party to the Cooperative Agreement, the NTIA bears responsibility for supporting a domain name system that enables the growth of online commerce. Both individual consumers and businesses depend on responsible management of the .com system. Monopolistic elements and excessive domain name price increases stifle the ability of potential .com registrants to conduct business online ... As such, we seek more information about the NTIA’s process in considering the renewal of both the Registry Agreement and the Cooperative Agreement.”
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To hear well-known Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett tell it, Verizon spent a mind-boggling $52 billion on C-band spectrum which “isn’t very good” and fixing its 5G coverage problem is going to require even more money—“lots of money.” That was one of the hottest and most publicized take-aways from Verizon’s Q2 earnings call. While Moffett described Verizon’s overall wireless Q2 results as “fair,” the gist of his report focused on “Verizon’s C-band problem,” one that he said will take a whole lot of densification to rectify. And densification, for the record, isn’t cheap. Verizon’s C-band challenges returned to the limelight when Opensignal released its most recent Network Experience report, which reported that Verizon customers are in range and connected just 7.7% of the time.
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When people with disabilities interact with technologies, there is a risk that they will face discriminatory impacts in several important and high-stakes contexts. Disability rights and disability justice activists have a long history of fighting against discrimination that impacts disabled people. While technology-facilitated disability discrimination may be newer forms of older injustices, it is not going anywhere. While it is tempting to write off this bias as the result of the so-called algorithmic “black box,” disparate and discriminatory algorithmic outcomes can often be linked back to problems with the data on which models are trained—and better data is likely to produce better results. In this paper, we highlight several policy recommendations, including:
- Disability data should be collected in all contexts where other demographic data is collected.
- Data should be collected and stored in ways that are respectful of personal and data privacy.
- New and more inclusive methods of both defining disability and collecting disability data must be developed.
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Rep Katie Porter (D-CA) introduced legislation to protect social media users from hate speech and increase transparency from tech companies. In 2023, more than half of adults and teens reported being harassed online, up 12% from 2022, but experts lack data to evaluate how well social media companies are protecting users from hate speech. The Digital Social Platform Transparency Act would require social media companies to provide clear and accessible Terms of Service to users and report on internal content regulation processes. Under this bill, data collected about content violations, which include metrics on hate speech, racism, extremism, misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference, would be available to the public. Additionally, companies must disclose their terms of service agreements, which must contain information on moderation practices and prohibited content, so that users can better understand how to safeguard their online communities.
Sens Hickenlooper, Capito Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Create Guidelines for Third-Party Audits of AI
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Sens John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) introduced the bipartisan Validation and Evaluation for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (VET AI) Act which directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to work with federal agencies and stakeholders across industry, academia, and civil society to develop detailed specifications, guidelines, and recommendations for third-party evaluators to work with AI companies to provide robust independent external assurance and verification of how their AI systems are developed and tested. Specifically, the VET AI Act would:
- Direct NIST, in coordination with the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, to develop voluntary specifications and guidelines for developers and deployers of AI systems to conduct internal assurance and work with third parties on external assurance regarding the verification and red-teaming of AI systems
- Establish a collaborative Advisory Committee to review and recommend criteria for individuals or organizations seeking to obtain certification of their ability to conduct internal or external assurance for AI systems
- Require NIST to conduct a study examining various aspects of the ecosystem of AI assurance, including the current capabilities and methodologies used, facilities or resources needed, and overall market demand for internal and external AI assurance
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), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and Zoe Walker (zwalker AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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