Internet/Broadband

The Lifeline Connects Coalition met with Federal Communications Commission Wireline Competition Bureau staff on August 10, 2017 to discuss the Lifeline National Eligibility Verifier. The Coalition discussed improvements to the timing of subscriber proof of eligibility for migration to the National Verifier, the recent decision not to provide a service provider application programming interface to the National Verifier, and the proper interpretation of the June 29, 2017 Public Notice regarding service provider liabilities under the National Verifier. The Coalition also discussed its Petition seeking reconsideration of minimum service standards and the GAO Lifeline Report.

Plans to protest outside Google’s offices this weekend have been postponed, but conservatives are taking America’s culture wars directly to Silicon Valley, a place that was long insulated from political rancor but is now one of the most important ideological battlegrounds.

Organizers postponed the event — which was scheduled to take place in cities where Google has offices — saying that the news coverage surrounding their plans had led to threats from left-wing “terrorist groups.” The rallies were inspired by James Damore, the former Google engineer who was fired last week for posting a 10-page internal memo arguing that the lack of women in tech could be attributed to biological differences. His dismissal sparked an outcry from conservatives who say their opinions are being muzzled by liberal technology companies and led Damore to criticize his former company for promoting a “particularly intense echo chamber.”

The lack of high-speed internet services in many rural areas is one of the challenges hindering Florida’s efforts to increase college degrees and spur economic development, a new report shows. Some 680,000 Floridians do not have access to a broadband internet service that would allow information to be downloaded at minimum speed of 25 megabits per second, according to the report presented to the state Higher Education Coordinating Council.

Ed Moore, president of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida who compiled the report, said the data should prompt a “hard look at what access there is to digital learning and digital infrastructure across our state.” “You cannot get ahead if you cannot get online,” Moore said. Expanding broadband access and online education opportunities could help the state meet the Higher Education Coordinating Council’s goal of having 55 percent of Florida’s working-age population obtain either a college degree or professional certificate by 2025. Less than 47 percent have reached that level. Moore said the 30 private colleges and universities in his organization now offer 592 degrees and certificates through online courses.

Seattle is upping its financial contribution to a program that for the past 20 years has helped community groups provide technology, as well as the skills needed to use technology, to residents who are traditionally underserved and often left behind. The program is called the Technology Matching Fund, and the Seattle City Council recently voted to award $430,000 through it to 15 local groups.

This year the fund is expected to help more than 6,000 residents of Seattle in underserved or underrepresented communities, including those of immigrants and refugees, seniors, at-risk youths, and people with disabilities. The resources will help these residents by being put to use through a wide range of social groups, including the Boys and Girls Club, LaunchCode, the West African Community Council and many others. The matching facet of this program is a simple one: For every dollar the city gives, an organization will match it with 50 cents of its own money then being put toward tech. What the money is used for varies from organization to organization, but in a broad sense it all will go to one of the three priorities that have been established by Seattle’s digital inclusion planning: increasing connectivity throughout the city; fostering better digital skills among residents; and providing devices and other technology to those who do not presently have access to it.

[Commentary] Today, faced with serious economic and political dysfunction, we are in need of another round of deep institutional renewal: a Third Republic. We need to coalesce around how best to create shared prosperity. This necessitates increasing productivity — the growth of which has been weak of late — and creating more well-paid jobs as well as finding better ways of redistributing the gains from new technologies and globalization in the fairer way.

Redesign antitrust for the era of big data: The role of large, dominant corporations in the U.S. economy has reached alarming proportions. The conventional commercial doctrine is that data are proprietary to the companies that collect them. This needs to change profoundly and completely since the playing field can only be leveled by making data available to all potential competitors. One way of achieving this is to ensure data belong to the people who generate the information, i.e., to individuals who drive cars, surf the internet, and buy goods. Enforcing this principle will ensure that data can be accessed by all, but also that individuals are compensated for the activities that generate information, at the same time as receiving a strong degree of privacy protection. The American Third Republic needs to clean up the influence industry and strengthen the institutional foundations of our democracy.

[Daron Acemoglu is a co-author with James A. Robinson of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. imon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management.]

The debate surrounding the repeal of network neutrality has touched on everything from free speech to online innovation and consumer rights. But how will it affect consumers' wallets? The short answer: It depends.

Here's what the experts predict.
Your internet bill. If net neutrality is repealed, and Internet service providers take advantage of the relaxed regulations, some experts predict that you'll see changes to how your monthly internet bill looks and what it includes.
Content providers. Without net neutrality rules in place, some experts foresee content providers, such as Netflix, Hulu and other websites, needing to pay more to have their content travel via a "fast lane" in order to prevent slow loading times and other challenges. Those applications and websites may opt to pass those increased costs to customers.
Online research. For those websites and online applications that don't – or can't – pay for access to the "fast lane," it may be harder to access, load and use their sites.

An advocacy group is launching an ad campaign targeting lawmakers who want to roll back the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules. Fight For The Future, a pro-net neutrality advocacy group, bought billboards in six states to target Sens John Thune (R-SD) and Roger Wicker (R-MS), as well as Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Reps Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Tom Graves (R-GA). The billboards show the lawmakers’ faces with text criticizing their stance and urging the public to call their offices.

Verizon’s Director of Network Planning Vincent O’Byrne outlined a Verizon next generation broadband strategy. That strategy is heavily focused on NG-PON2. It apparently will not include G.fast. “We have no strategy for G.Fast,” O’Byrne replied when I asked him why Verizon was not using G.fast for their multidwelling unit (MDU) deployments. O’Byrne stressed the goal of taking fiber all the way to the living unit, even in MDU environments. O’Byrne cited a variety of factors for passing on G.fast in favor of a true fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) approach. Those reasons include poor copper network conditions across some of Verizon’s territory, as well as past copper broadband experiences in MDUs that Verizon does not want to repeat.

Verizon has been using VDSL and ethernet over copper to reach individual units in MDUs, when bringing fiber to its basement. They’ve run into considerable operational and interoperability challenges with this approach, O’Byrne noted. “We see ourselves in this same situation with G.fast five years from now,” O’Byrne explained.

[Commentary] The front-page story in The Wall Street Journal announced, “Walt Disney Co. just became the biggest cord-cutter Hollywood has ever seen.” The iconic company announced it was starting two online streaming services that will bypass its traditional cable television distribution. Thank you, Open Internet Rule!

The sine qua non that made it all possible was the Federal Communications Commission Open Internet Rule that the cable operators cannot deny, degrade or deprioritize Disney access to their broadband service, even when it is competitive to their cable service. This is the very same rule that the Trump FCC, at the request of the lobbyists for the big broadband companies, has announced an intention to eliminate. And the very same rule that Republican legislators are pushing content providers to help them scuttle. The Open Internet Rule – especially the General Conduct Rule portion – is like Disney’s famous character Jiminy Cricket, who acted as Pinocchio’s conscience. As the Jiminy Cricket of the Internet Age, the Open Internet Rule sits on the shoulder of broadband providers to make sure they do the right thing.

[Tom Wheeler is a visiting fellow with the Governance Studies, Center for Technology Innovation, and former Chairman to the FCC.]

Comcast Corporation announced that its acclaimed Internet Essentials program, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive high-speed Internet adoption program, has now connected more than four million low-income Americans, in one million households, to high-speed Internet service at home. The State of Florida is second to California with the most connected households in the country, having connected more than 120,000 low-income households benefitting nearly 500,000 Floridians.

The company also announced three key program enhancements:
For the fourth time in six years, Comcast will increase the program’s Internet service speeds, this time from 10/1 Mbps to up to 15/2 Mbps.
To help family members connect to the Internet on the go and save money on their wireless bills, Internet Essentials customers will now enjoy 40 hours of free out-of-home WiFi access per month to the company’s growing network of 18 million Xfinity WiFi hotspots.
Comcast is also expanding its pilot program for low-income senior citizens from five cities and metropolitan areas to 12, including today in Miami-Dade County (FL).