What's on the agenda for policymakers.
Agenda
Community Broadband: Privacy, Access, and Local Control
[Commentary] Communities across the United States are considering strategies to protect residents’ access to information and their right to privacy.
FCC Proposes $500M Rural Broadband Funding Injection
Federal Communications Commission rural broadband funding could increase by over $500 million if the commission votes to adopt an order circulated by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The the funding would include about $180 million for the current funding year for the nation’s smaller rate-of-return (ROR) carriers who get their support through traditional legacy mechanisms and up to $360 million over the next 10 years to ROR carriers who receive support based on the FCC's Alternative-Connect America Cost Mode (A-CAM). The $500 million would come, in part, from reserves.
Washington’s next big tech battle: closing the country’s digital divide
President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are forging ahead with new plans to boost high-speed internet around the country, hoping that their signature crusade — deregulation — might help spur better web access in the country’s hardest-to-reach rural areas. The bid to boost broadband is expected to become a small but critical component of infrastructure reform, a still-evolving proposal that could set aside $200 billion in federal funds to upgrade the guts of the United States — including aging roads, bridges and tunnels.
Agenda
9 - 9:45 a.m. Registration and Breakfast
9:45 a.m. Welcome Remarks and Address by the Hon. Ajit Pai, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
10:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Panel Discussions
Members will explore the effects of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its application to the manufacturing sector. These devices can help increase efficiency for manufacturers. For example, IoT connected machines can communicate the need for more raw materials, when they need replacing, and provide information about productivity.
Witnesses
Mr. Thomas D. Bianculli
Chief Technology Officer, Zebra Technologies Corporation
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s BroadbandUSA Program, in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, will host a Broadband Summit about ‘‘Creating Partnerships to Ensure Access for All’’ on March 20, 2018. Speakers and attendees from Tennessee, federal agencies, and across the country will come together to explore ways to increase broadband deployment and improve broadband adoption to advance their overarching business, social, economic, and community goals.
Free speech has long been a cornerstone of American democracy, but the ubiquity and intimacy of online content is now challenging our society’s once-unshakable belief in the appeal of unfettered speech. In this age of hacks, trolls, fake news, and digital hate speech, lawmakers, citizens, and the tech companies that control our access to the Internet and social media are rethinking how much we should police online content for veracity and for its potential to do harm.
Editorial: It's up to Congress to save the internet
[Commentary] The Restoring Internet Freedom order was a triumph of ideology over sense, sacrificing the interests of internet users and innovators on the altar of deregulatory purity. Some leading broadband providers, recognizing that they got more from the FCC than they’d bargained for, pledged never to use their newfound freedom to interfere online. But that’s not enough. Ideally, Congress would do something it should have done a decade ago: update federal communications law to give the FCC a mandate and clear authority to protect net neutrality.
The Republicans had Obamacare. The Democrats have net neutrality.
[Commentary] There were a lot of rational reasons that Republicans kept a laserlike focus on Obamacare from 2010 to 2016. And there was a lesson Democrats could take from that. Find an intractable issue that excites the base, and push forward on it, no matter what. They may have found that issue — net neutrality. There’s a legislative tool called the Congressional Review Act, that gives Congress the right to overturn regulations put into effect by the executive branch within 60 working days of the rule being finalized.
House Communications Subcommittee Reps Introduce First Round of Broadband Infrastructure Bills
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced a series of bills introduced by subcommittee members aimed at reducing the regulatory barriers to broadband infrastructure expansion: