Internet/Broadband

I think it’s time for a National Broadband Map that offers an honest picture of wired and wireless broadband across the country. Too often the Federal Communications Commission cobbles together data for each individual rulemaking and report without a comprehensive and updated snapshot of where service is and is not. We can build this map in Washington, but it would be great if we had a clearer picture on the ground. I’m a big believer in the wisdom of crowds, so I think we should put it to the public. If you’ve not been able to get service, or live in an area that lacks it, help us make a map and write me at broadbandfail@fcc.gov. I’ve set this account up to take in your ideas. I will share every one of them with the agency Chairman—and put on pressure to do something about it.

For decades, the FCC has led the world with its auction models for the distribution of spectrum licenses. We’ve made a lot of progress powering the mobile devices that so many of us rely on every day. But take a drive along some rural roads and you will know there is room for improvement. It’s one reason why the AIRWAVES Act from Sen Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Sen Cory Gardner (R-CO) is so important. It helps identify more licensed and unlicensed spectrum that can be brought to market to improve wireless broadband. On top of that, it sets up a fund whereby auction revenues will help support wireless broadband infrastructure in rural America. It’s the kind of creative effort that would in time lead to more coverage on a broadband map and also help bridge the Homework Gap.

[Commentary] In recent years, a number of states have endeavored to get into the internet policy game. As the internet diffuses across the economy, the urge to act at the state level will likely strengthen. We saw this recently when California legislators proposed their own internet privacy law after Congress struck down a 2015 internet privacy regulation using the Congressional Review Act, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued its Restoring Internet Freedom proposal.

But to the extent that Congress, the FCC, and the FTC have the authority to protect the free flow of internet activity against state-based obstacles and fragmentation, they should do so. In its coming order, the FCC should reaffirm the interstate nature of these services.

[Bret Swanson is concurrently president of Entropy Economics LLC]

Team Internet is a network of volunteers combining people power with technology to mobilize people across the country to pressure their lawmakers to stand up for Net Neutrality. Free Press Action Fund, Demand Progress and Fight for the Future launched the project in July. Since then, Team Internet volunteers have spoken in person about Net Neutrality to 200 members of Congress or their staff at both town halls and in-district meetings.

Activists Iliana Gomez and Lesley Perg provide a critical backbone of support for Team Internet’s organizing infrastructure to make that happen. Since the end of August, they’ve done nearly all the work of the host-support team. This team has provided assistance to the scores of individuals — or hosts — who have organized meetings about Net Neutrality with their local congressional offices through Team Internet. Gomez and Perg call hosts and talk them through the details of their events, ensuring they have all the materials they need and are prepared to meet fellow activists and their lawmakers.

At the start of this decade, the Arab Spring blossomed with the help of social media. That is the sort of story the tech industry loves to tell about itself: It is bringing freedom, enlightenment and a better future for all mankind. Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, proclaimed that this was exactly why his social network existed. In a 2012 manifesto for investors, he said Facebook was a tool to create “a more honest and transparent dialogue around government.” The result, he said, would be “better solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time.”

Now tech companies are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them. At the top of the list is Russian interference in last year’s presidential election. Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. The manipulation was so efficient and so lacking in transparency that the companies themselves barely noticed it was happening. The election is far from the only area of concern. Tech companies have accrued a tremendous amount of power and influence. Amazon determines how people shop, Google how they acquire knowledge, Facebook how they communicate. All of them are making decisions about who gets a digital megaphone and who should be unplugged from the web. Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings, and is sparking a backlash that is still gathering force.

The government's top watchdog has agreed to investigate the reported cyberattack that targeted the Federal Communications Commission earlier in 2017 while the agency was preparing to roll back net neutrality regulations. A spokesman for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed it has accepted a request from two Democratic lawmakers to probe the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that the FCC said disrupted its electronic comment filing system in May. The spokesman said that the probe, which was first reported by Politico, is “now in the queue, but the work won’t get underway for several months.” The investigation will also examine the FCC’s broader cybersecurity efforts.

[Commentary] As a candidate, Donald Trump deserved credit for identifying a policy that damages jobs, competitiveness, and economic growth: underinvestment in infrastructure. Unfortunately, Trump’s plans as president, including his budget and tax proposals, in combination with congressional politics, suggest his overall impact on infrastructure will make a bad situation worse. Would the long-promised $1 trillion infrastructure fund more than make up for the problems the tax bill creates? The answer is no. A

s President Trump finally admitted, his plan will not work. Candidate Trump’s plan was premised on attracting private capital to fund infrastructure. But that would only help projects that directly produce revenues, leaving out such needed projects as local roads, schools, and fire stations, among others. Public funding is essential to building a broad coalition necessary to move forward with a national infrastructure bill. Private financing not only limits the kinds of projects financed, but also limits where the projects will be located. Other than in broadband, nearly all the kinds of infrastructure projects—airports, transit, bridges—capable of attracting the kinds of revenue necessary to secure funding, are in metropolitan areas. That would limit the political attractiveness of any legislation to rural congressional members, whose voting block is sizable. The administration’s tax plan, however, now makes the fiscal politics for public funds impossible. In short: Trump’s tax plan would decrease funds for the principal sources of infrastructure financing; his original infrastructure plan is dead; and his tax plan will put the country in a position where no infrastructure plan is likely to move forward. That combination would only intensify national infrastructure challenges.

[Blair Levin is a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. Adie Tomer is a fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program and leads the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative.]

[Commentary] Frontier's recent revelation that it intends to use fixed wireless to address the rural broadband availability problem using the second phase of the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund (CAF-II) program is set on a simple goal: extend broadband to areas where deploying wireline facilities is prohibitive. What’s interesting about Frontier is that other than being a supplier of backhaul, the company is mainly a wireline carrier.

Can it effectively overcome engineering and regulatory challenges to complement rural wireline broadband with wireless? There’s both regulatory and technical challenges. Putting aside these challenges, it's hard to not to see the benefits wireless broadband could bring for rural providers. These telcos can use a complementary approach to address remote areas that are still difficult to address even with CAF-II funding today.

I am concerned the Federal Communications Commission is gearing up to approve a transaction that will hand a single broadcast company the unprecedented ability to reach more than 70 percent of American households. It hasn’t happened yet. But there are disconcerting signs.

Before I returned to the Commission, the agency inexplicably resurrected an outdated and scientifically inaccurate system for tallying station ownership, known as the UHF discount. It also reversed an effort to investigate joint sales agreements. Both steps helped speed the way for this transaction—which would combine two broadcasting giants: Tribune and Sinclair The bottom line is we are not going to remedy what ails our media with a rush of new consolidation. We are not going to fix our inability to ferret fact from fiction by doubling down on a single company owning ever more of our public airwaves.

FirstNet is charged with establishing a nationwide public-safety broadband network that is reliable, secure, and interoperable. To inform this work, FirstNet is consulting with a variety of stakeholders. In March 2017, FirstNet awarded a 25-year contract to AT&T to build, operate, and maintain the network. FirstNet's oversight of AT&T's performance is important given the scope of the network and the duration of the contract. This testimony provides information on (1) FirstNet's efforts to establish the network; (2) stakeholder views on network reliability, security, and interoperability challenges FirstNet faces and its efforts to address them; and (3) FirstNet's plans to oversee its network contractor. This statement is based on GAO's June 2017 report.

For this report, GAO reviewed FirstNet documentation, key contract oversight practices identified in federal regulations and other sources, tribal communication practices identified by federal agencies, and assessed FirstNet's efforts and plans against these practices. GAO also interviewed FirstNet officials and a nongeneralizable selection of public safety, tribal, and other stakeholders selected to obtain a variety of viewpoints. In June 2017, GAO recommended that FirstNet fully explore tribal stakeholders' concerns and assess its long-term staffing needs. FirstNet agreed with GAO's recommendations and described actions to address them.

Cable Internet with download and upload speeds of 10Gbps may eventually come to American homes thanks to a new specification for higher-speed, symmetrical data transmissions. The industry's R&D consortium, CableLabs, announced that it has completed the Full Duplex Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification, an update to DOCSIS 3.1.

The completion of the 10Gbps full duplex spec comes 18 months after the project was unveiled. The completion of the spec doesn't mean you'll suddenly be getting multi-gigabit uploads and downloads, as commercial deployments may be at least a couple of years away and may not initially provide the maximum speeds allowed by the spec. The initial version of DOCSIS 3.1 was announced in 2013 and allowed 10Gbps downloads and 1Gbps uploads, but the first modems weren't certified until early 2016, and real-world implementations are still catching up. Comcast last year began offering gigabit download speeds over cable using DOCSIS 3.1, but the service limited uploads to 35Mbps. Comcast's only symmetrical gigabit service uses fiber-to-the-home instead of cable, as fiber technologies have supported symmetrical transmissions at gigabit speeds for years.