Washington Examiner

At least two senators are demanding that a program subsidizing high-speed internet for lower-income families be extended as part of the airline safety bill making its way through the Senate. Sen J.D.

In less than two months, if Congress does not act, tens of millions of people could find themselves unable to stay connected to high-speed internet.

President Joe Biden's nominee for Federal Communications Commissioner, Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society], is a prominent liberal activist and a former Democratic staffer at the FCC who favors net neutrality, stronger government regulation of the broadband industry, and the breakup of Big Tech companies. Senate Republicans strongly oppose her confirmation, criticizing her not only as a left-wing ideologue who would favor heavy-handed regulation but also, unusually, as a threat to censor or block conservative speech.

No industry should be free from antitrust scrutiny, including big tech. But the splitting of this tech antitrust review across two federal agencies (the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division), despite the many similar competition issues that will be investigated, illustrates the absurdity of having two federal agencies handling civil antitrust enforcement.

Some 39 percent of rural Americans lack access to broadband Internet. Rural communities tend to be less profitable for broadband service providers, since a smaller number of customers spread over a larger geographical area prevents economies of scale that are achievable in a densely populated region.

Expanding access to broadband has emerged as one of the few issues that enjoys bicameral and bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, and 2018 is shaping up to be the year in which the White House, Congress, and the private sector unite to bridge the digital divide.