Internet/Broadband

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's claim that repealing network neutrality rules will boost network investment didn't get much support from Verizon's latest spending forecast. Verizon's network spending won't change much in 2018, and the company also won't be using its newfound tax savings to upgrade its broadband networks. Verizon reported $17.2 billion of capital expenditures in calendar year 2017, with the net neutrality rules in place the entire year.

Is price diversity a bad thing for consumers or does it foster broadband take-up, especially by laggards? Academic research finds that tariff diversity is a driving factor for broadband adoption and does not impede take-up. Based on a rich original dataset with more than 10,000 residential retail broadband offers for 23 European states between 2003 and 2011, my research found that broadband demand is positively related to increased tariff diversity, especially in the presence of inter-platform competition.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai actually allowed the weight of public comments on the FCC's proposed changes to network neutrality regulations to sway (or confirm) his position, he seems to have given more credence to the "opinions" of spam-generating software "bots" than actual citizens, researchers have found. Leah Figueroa, lead data engineer at the data analytics software company Gravwell, presented a detailed analysis of the public comments submitted to the FCC regarding network neutrality.

Today happens to be the one-year anniversary of the President appointing me the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. That marker meshes well with today’s proceedings, for a couple of reasons. First, the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee’s (BDAC) work is critical to my top policy priority as FCC Chairman—closing the digital divide. A second reason why this one-year anniversary means something is that the BDAC reflects a core tenet of my policymaking approach: that the decisions we make inside this building must reflect input and fresh ideas from outside these walls.

The Mayor's Office of the Chief Technology Officer for the City of New York released a "Truth in Broadband” Request for Information (RFI) to establish transparency and accountability in how carriers provide internet service to consumers. The goal of the RFI is to gather input from industry and subject matter experts to help implement a system for monitoring the quality and performance of internet service providers.

[Commentary] As young policy wonks in D.C.—one working for Clinton-Gore, the other urging non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to engage tech policy—we listened to tech innovators and leaders for social justice. As we look back over those years, we see how many who inspired us in the early days decided to head off in a different direction. What precisely happened?

Partnerships with pay TV operators, internet service providers, and other service providers are valuable contributors to Netflix’s subscriber growth and could play an even larger role as the company looks more deeply into agreements that bundle in the Netflix service. Netflix doesn’t break out what percentage of new customers come through its various partnerships with ISPs and pay TV providers: they are a “meaningful contributor, but not a dominant contributor in terms of being a major channel for us in terms of acquisition,” said David Wells, Netflix’s CFO.

For publishers, Facebook’s plans to shake-up its news feed may mean a dramatic change in traffic from the platform. The social media company has said its new algorithm will prioritize what it calls “meaningful social interactions”—posts, photos and videos that users share and discuss. Content directly from publishers won’t perform as well unless people engage with it.

A coalition of conservative groups are urging Congress not to support a bill that would overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of network neutrality. Twenty-four free-market groups sent letters to lawmakers on Jan 22 calling on them to let the FCC’s decision stand, arguing that the rules stifled investment from broadband companies. “Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s 2015 decision to classify the Internet as a public utility under Title II was a solution in search of a problem, and disrupted the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) tried and true approach,” the letter reads.

Since Chairman Ajit Pai took over the leadership of the Federal Communications Commission, he has emphasized that one of his main goals has been to “close the digital divide and bring the benefits of the Internet age to all Americans.” So it comes as no surprise that the FCC has taken several measures recently to overhaul the Lifeline program under the tagline “Bridging the Digital Divide for Low-Income Consumers.” The November changes to the Lifeline Program were mainly cutbacks; reducing available subsidies, as well as limiting eligible participants and carriers.