Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Local government officials are often taken in by the allure of government-owned broadband networks (GONs) when told by activists or consultants that they are superior to relying on private providers. While a GON could be the least bad option if no private providers are willing to invest, build, and operate, GONs are typically a suboptimal choice. Comparisons between GONs and private Internet service providers (ISPs) are often asymmetric—overlooking favoritism toward GONs and hostility to private deployment.

Adoption is now the primary barrier to closing the digital divide. While deployment subsidies have been the bread and butter of broadband policy for decades, now that implementation of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA’s) Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program is underway, broadband policy must retool for a future that prioritizes adoption efforts to address the leading causes of Internet non-use rather than the dwindling problem of lack of deployment. Digital inclusion efforts that can address adoption gaps

Many attempts to increase the flexibility of wireless spectrum rights meet objections that the method of reallocation will result in a windfall for corporate license holders. Far from being objectionable, however, allowing windfalls in spectrum reallocation creates virtuous incentives. Past restrictions on the supply of flexible-use rights to the spectrum have resulted in a rigid system, which is not in the public interest because the most productive uses of the spectrum change rapidly.

Spectrum policy takes engineering and technical realities as inputs to a decision-making process that is driven by normative principles. While many competing principles have had their heyday, these five are enduring guides to making spectrum work in the public interest:

With the rise of China, the US economic and technology environment has fundamentally and inexorably changed.