Internet/Broadband

China has built a new wall, in cyberspace — the largest system of Internet censorship, control and surveillance in the world, nicknamed the Great Firewall of China. Thirty years on, it is extending those controls even further.

Since passing its broad new Cybersecurity Law in June 2017, the Communist Party has rolled out new regulations — and steps to enforce existing ones — that reflect its desire to control and exploit every inch of the digital world, experts say. Today, the Great Firewall is being built not just around the country, to keep foreign ideas and uncomfortable truths out, but around every individual, computer and smartphone, in a society that has become the most digitally connected in the world. The Cyberspace Administration of China effectively ended online anonymity here by making Internet companies responsible for ensuring that anyone who posts anything is registered with their real name. It has cracked down on the VPN (virtual private network) systems that netizens have used to jump the firewall and evade censorship, with Apple agreeing to remove VPN providers from its Chinese App Store in July and authorities detaining a local software developer for three days last month for selling similar services. And authorities dramatically expanded their controls over what people say in private online chat groups, making anyone who sets up a chat group legally responsible for its content and requiring Internet companies to establish systems to rate and score the online conduct of users — to ensure they follow the Communist Party line and promote “socialist core values.”

[Commentary] If you believe communications networks should be fast, fair, open, and affordable, you need ask your senator to vote against Ajit Pai’s reconfirmation. Now. The Senate vote on Pai is imminent. When it happens, it will be a stark referendum on the kind of communications networks and consumer protections we want to see in this country.

Senators can choose a toothless Federal Communications Commission that will protect huge companies, allow them to further consolidate, charge higher prices with worsening service, and a create bigger disconnect between broadband haves and have-nots. Or, they can vote for what the FCC is supposed to do: protect consumers, promote competition, and ensure access for all Americans, including the most vulnerable. It shouldn’t be a hard decision, and what we’ve seen over the past eight months makes the stakes clear.

[Gigi Sohn served as counselor to former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler from November 2013 to December 2016. She is currently a fellow at the Open Society Foundations]

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration issues this Notice of Funding Opportunity to describe the requirements under which NTIA will award grants for the State and Local Implementation Grant Program 2.0 (SLIGP 2.0), authorized by section 6302 of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (Act), to assist state, local and tribal governments with planning activities for the nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network.

Applications will be accepted from September 27, 2017 until December 28, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time; or from September 27, 2017 until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the 91st calendar day from the date that the Governor of an applicant State receives notice from FirstNet of its final State Plan, whichever is later. Applicants are encouraged to submit SLIGP 2.0 applications as soon as possible in the application window once their respective Governor has made a decision regarding the FirstNet State Plan for deployment of the Radio Access Network. The earlier submission of applications will assist NTIA with workflow challenges during the abbreviated application review time period.

[Commentary] This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will officially confirm that the US wireless marketplace is characterized by effective competition. As this new generation of wireless service takes hold, it seems likely that most Americans will no longer have a reason to buy both types of service.

Peter Rysavy, an engineer whose firm has been examining wireless technology issues for more than two decades, says that “eventually consumers will pay for just one broadband connection, fixed and mobile.” He sees 5G as “a serious threat” to the wireline-only companies because it will enable consumers who generally prefer wireless to abandon wired broadband altogether.

[Shane Tews is president of Logan Circle Strategies]

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) took to the Senate floor to oppose the nomination of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai for a new term on the commission, citing network neutrality. Sen Cantwell said Chairman Pai had moved the FCC away from its key public service mission, including net neutrality, which she called one of the most important issues of our time. She told her colleagues that in the information age, making sure the internet remains open is key. She also said that the vote on Pai's nomination would happen on Oct. 2. She said Chairman Pai was trying to clog the arteries of one of the fastest growing economic opportunities in America. "I am not going to vote for someone who is going to clog the internet."

AT&T rural broadband expansion via Connect America Fund-supported fixed wireless service now reaches 160,000 locations across 18 states. Nine states were recently added. The expansion nearly doubles the reach since AT&T’s last update on the service in June 2017. Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin join Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. AT&T has plans to reach 400,000 locations by the end of this year, and over 1.1 million locations by 2020. The Connect America Fund, the Federal Communications Commission’s program to expand rural broadband access.

The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) will review the technical aspects of Internet of data collection and privacy. This review will result in a report with an anticipated publication date in early 2018.

In various contexts, different organizations are studying data collection practices and privacy in the Internet “ecosystem” and public discourse has suggested there is a significant gap between perceived and actual data collection practices. Much of this discourse has also been focused on one set of actors or another, without a more holistic consideration of the significant roles played by a broad cross-section of all those involved, ranging from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to edge providers, advertising networks, application developers, equipment manufacturers, and others. Often, the discussion is not sufficiently informed by technical information regarding actual practices. BITAG’s report on Internet data collection and privacy will draw on concrete, specific technical information and aims to shed light on the current state of data collection practices, including: what types of data are collected, where and how collection takes place, and for what purposes the data is used (e.g., operational, service related). The report will also investigate and report on how these practices vary across the broader Internet ecosystem; the report will discuss the roles various parts of the Internet ecosystem play in collecting data from and about Internet users, the analytic tools and methods that various stakeholders apply to the collected data, how different stakeholders use the data, and more. BITAG’s technical working group will analyze this topic and issue a report that will describe the issue in depth, highlight technical observations, and suggest appropriate best practices. The lead editors of BITAG’s report on IoT security and privacy are Jason Livingood of Comcast and Nick Feamster, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. Douglas Sicker, Executive Director of BITAG, Chair of BITAG’s Technical Working Group, Department Head of Engineering and Public Policy and a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, will chair the review itself.

Google has started overhauling millions of search results in Europe—and neither the search giant nor its detractors are happy about it.

Google is allowing rival shopping-comparison services to bid for and resell advertising space at the very top of Google search results in Europe. The new ads appear alongside similar product ads from Google’s own shopping-ad unit, which Google said is bidding independently in the same auctions. The changes are part of Google’s effort to comply with a European Union antitrust decision that fined the company 2.42 billion euros ($2.71 billion) for using its dominant search engine to favor its own shopping ads at the expense of competitors’ -- and ordered it to start treating itself the same as its competitors. Google is appealing the decision, but is implementing its order to avoid noncompliance fines that can reach total 5% of its global daily revenue, or more than $12 million.

A new Consumer Reports survey shows that a majority of Americans favor net neutrality rules that prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking lawful online content.

One main finding was that the majority of Americans—57 percent—support the current network neutrality regulations that ban ISPs from blocking or discriminating against lawful content on the internet. Sixteen percent said they opposed these regulations, while about a quarter didn't express an opinion on the topic. An even larger majority—67 percent—said that ISPs shouldn't be allowed to choose which websites, apps, or streaming services their customers can access. Almost as many—63 percent—don't think an ISP should be allowed to modify or edit content consumers try to access on the internet. When it comes to paid prioritization deals, in which ISPs can provide faster delivery of content to companies that pay a fee for it, roughly half the respondents—48 percent—said they didn't believe such practices should be permitted, while 26 percent said they should be permitted, and 26 percent expressed no opinion.

Of all concerns we have, probably the biggest one centers around something called paid prioritization. That’s where the broadband providers get to enter into special relationships with certain websites to get their websites into a “fast lane“ to get their content to users faster. There are a lot of problems with this idea. The first one is pretty obvious; a “fast lane” doesn’t exist. Fiber is fiber, and things travel across it at the same speed unless another force is acting on it. That means that in order to build the fast lane, you basically need to slow everything else down. Quite simply, we don’t think our users should be artificially slowed down. With extremely limited exception, the open Internet order bans paid prioritization. Walking back the order puts it back on the table, and that is dangerous. The same thing is true for blocking and throttling. These are not allowed by order of the open Internet order, except for network maintenance reasons. That is extremely important to the open Internet, and the customers we serve. It needs to persevere.