What's on the agenda for policymakers.
Agenda
House Commerce Democrats Propose $40 Billion for Broadband Buildout In Newest Version of Infrastructure Bill
The week was jam-packed with broadband news [Seriously, see the Quick Bits and Weekend Readsbelow]. There was an oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission, Rep.
FCC Annouces Tentative Agenda for June 2019 Open Meeting
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the June Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, June 6, 2019:
Centering Civil Rights in the Privacy Debate
Can Congress prevent the disproportionate harm inflicted on marginalized communities from at times irresponsible commercial data practices? As our lives increasingly shift online, so, too, have methods of discrimination—using individual data profiles—and our laws have been slow to keep up.
FCC's Hurricane Headache
House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) raised concern at the Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing about the agency’s response to “major consumer problems,” suggesting the commission had been deferring to corporate interests when it comes to fixing things like “robocalls or widespread communications failures after disasters like Hurricanes Maria and Michael.” The criticism came days after the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau issued a report detailing “the unac
Privacy + Antitrust?
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), whose House Commerce Subcommittee is leading efforts to craft privacy legislation, raised the prospect of tackling concerns over competition and data protection at the same time. Asked about next steps on privacy legislation, Chairwoman Schakowsky said the question is where to limit the “scope” of a bill. “You can really get into a whole lot of things,” she said. “There’s talk about breaking up the big tech companies. Is that a part of this? Is that a separate [issue]?
The communications market is changing rapidly - what began as a statewide, copper-based telephone network of franchise monopoly local exchange companies has evolved into a diverse, multi-provider and multi-technology broadband network that relies on copper, fiber optic, wireless, and satellite infrastructure.
Why Attend This En Banc?
Hear from stakeholders in business, education, government, and non-profit sectors examining questions on issues such as:
Witnesses
- Professor Avi Goldfarb
Ellison Professor of Marketing
Rotman School of ManagementUniversity of Toronto
Toronto, Canada
- Dr. Fiona M. Scott Morton, Ph.D.
Theodore Nierenberg Professor Of Economics
Yale School of Management
New Haven , CT
- Mr. Brian O'Kelley
Founder And Former CEO
AppNexus Inc.
New York , NY
- Dr. Johnny Ryan, Ph.D.
Chief Policy & Industry Relations Officer
Brave
San Francisco , CA
Throughout the United States, rural residents lag behind their urban counterparts in broadband access. This inequity echoes through disparities in access to jobs, education and healthcare, while harming the ability of rural communities to attract and retain businesses and residents. Broadband access has become a major driver of a larger urban-rural divide. However, local leaders are leading innovative plans to bridge that divide.
There has been a global consensus for nearly a century that countries should tax multinational companies in the jurisdictions where they create value, not where they generate sales. But that consensus has begun to fall apart as digitalization has made it easier to serve regional markets remotely and Internet companies have successfully capitalized on the opportunity.