Internet/Broadband

As the next installment of a decades-long series of data collections, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) proposes to add 66 questions to the Census Bureau’s November 2017 Current Population Survey (CPS) to gather reliable data on computer and broadband (also known as highspeed Internet) use by US households. To aid the Administration’s plan to incorporate broadband in the upcoming infrastructure initiative and ensure the digital preparedness of the nation’s current and future workforce, NTIA data will reveal consumers’ changing demand for broadband, as well as their online activities.

The information may inform decisions about the scope and scale of the needed infrastructure, particularly in remote and sparsely populated areas where broadband deployment may be difficult and costly. It may also shed light on opportunities to increase digital literacy and use among Americans who currently use the Internet sparingly, if at all.

Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent within 30 days OIRA_Submission@omb.eop.gov

The Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 pole attachment order was upheld in a ruling July 31 by the Eighth Circuit Court, providing a potential win for competitive and incumbent providers expanding their fiber networks. In 2015, a group of electric utilities, including Ameren Corporation, American Electric Power Service, CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, and Virginia Electric and Power Company petitioned to review a November 2015 order of the FCC governing the rates that utility companies may charge telecommunications providers for attaching their wired facilities to utility-owned poles.

The FCC, which was joined by intervenors Incompas, National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Level 3 Communications, and USTelecom, opposed the petition. In delivering its decision, the court found that the November 2015 Order provided a “reasonable interpretation of the ambiguity” in Section 224 of the Pole Attachments Act.

Rep Austin Scott (R-GA) brought back his End Taxpayer Funded Cell Phones Act before House lawmakers left town. That’s the legislation that GOP leadership fast-tracked straight to floor consideration immediately after its introduction in 2016. (They tried to advance it under suspension of the rules, and it went down 207-143.) It now has 18 GOP backers, triple what it had before. “My bill will reform the Lifeline Program and restore it to its original purpose of providing landline services and prohibit Universal Service support for mobile services,” Rep Scott said. A GOP leadership aide said there’s no talk on when and if the measure may be brought to the floor this time around.

“” explores nuances of rurality, details challenges rural libraries face in maximizing their community impacts and describes how existing collaborative regional and statewide efforts help rural libraries and their communities. Authors Brian Real and Norman Rose combine data from the final Digital Inclusion Survey with Public Libraries Survey data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to find:

• Rural library broadband capacity falls short of benchmarks set for US home access, which is 25 Mbps download and 4 Mbps upload speeds. By contrast, rural fringe libraries average 13/8.6 Mbps, rural distant is 7.7/2.2 Mbps and rural remote is 6.7/1 Mbps.
• Overall, one in 10 rural libraries report their internet speeds rarely meet patron needs.
• Rural libraries are on par with colleagues in larger communities in terms of public Wi-Fi access and providing patrons’ assistance with basic computer and internet training, but more specialized training and resources can lag.
• More than half of all rural libraries offer programs that help local residents apply for jobs and use job opportunity resources (e.g., online job listings, resume software), and rural libraries are comparable to their peers in providing work space for mobile workers.

The authors consider the roles of state and regional cooperation in adding capacity and resources for rural libraries, looking at examples from Maryland and Iowa.

Trade group INCOMPAS wants the Federal Communications Commission to include redacted materials from recent mergers involving Comcast, Charter and AT&T in its review of Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to roll back the agency’s network neutrality rules. The group, which counts Netflix and Sprint among its members, said economic studies, internal company presentations and other data submitted as part of the commission’s merger review process shows that internet service providers have incentive to curb competition. The information would be vital in a court review of final rules, said INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering. “The FCC has taken a position that the ISPs do not have the means and the motive to act against online competitors,” Pickering said. “And if that’s the question, you have to look at all the evidence. And a refusal to consider the evidence, I think any court would find unreasonable.”

INCOMPAS noted that its request would not make the information available to the general public. Instead, only certain parties would be able to see the documents — the same confidentiality the FCC used in the merger reviews. Comcast, Charter and AT&T opposed the request, arguing that sharing the information in the net neutrality proceeding risks disclosure of sensitive documents. Charter said the “unprecedented request is a harmful fishing expedition, which, if granted, would violate federal law.” Pickering finds the companies’ opposition suspect: “Their nuclear reaction for simply asking for the evidence to be included continues to beg the question, ‘What do they have to hide?’” INCOMPAS asks the FCC to act by July 31. Agency representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

US companies are largely unprepared for what's about to hit them when sweeping new European Union data laws take effect in 2018. The regulation — the General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR) — is intended to give users more control of how their personal data is used and streamline data processes across the EU. Companies that fail to comply with the complex law will face steep fines of up to 4% of their global annual revenue.

Europe has by far taken the most aggressive regulatory stance on protecting consumer privacy and will in many ways be a litmus test for regulating the currency of the data economy. It impacts a huge number of businesses from advertisers to e-commerce platforms whose data flows through EU countries. That means everyone from Google to your neighbor who sells shoes on eBay could be affected.

A bi-partisan coalition of 43 Congressional Reps is asking the Federal Communications Commission to reserve at least three TV white space channels in the 600 MHz band to support rural broadband deployments. “We believe that the television white spaces (TVWS) have strong potential to revolutionize broadband internet accessibility in rural areas,” wrote the coalition in a letter to the FCC. The coalition was led by Rep Kevin Cramer (R-ND) but also included some Democratic representatives, including Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA).

The three channels referenced would include the duplex gap between 652-663 MHz, Channel 37 (608-614 MHz) and an additional vacant channel in the post-auction broadcast TV band (54-608 MHz), the letter stated. The channels would be reserved for unlicensed use. If the idea of reserving three channels below 700 MHz for rural broadband sounds familiar, it may be because that’s what Microsoft has asked for to support the company’s plan to spur the deployment of TV white spaces technology to unserved rural areas. The 600 MHz band initially was licensed to television broadcasters but a portion of that band will now be repurposed for wireless use. A recent auction gave broadcasters the option of voluntarily relinquishing spectrum and sharing the auction proceeds with the government.

President Donald Trump is committed to moving an infrastructure bill in 2017 despite making little legislative progress towards on other policy goals, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on July 31. “The President has been very outspoken on the need for a massive overhaul to the country’s infrastructure system,” Sanders said during a White House press briefing. “That’s certainly still a priority both legislative and in any capacity that he has the ability to carry that out.” Earlier in July President Trump signed an executive order establishing a new American Infrastructure Council, which will bring together industry leaders in a number of areas, including broadband infrastructure, to formulate policy proposals for revitalizing the nation’s infrastructure.

BT has offered to spend up to £600 million to connect the final 1 million homes and businesses in rural areas of Britain to a broadband connection suitable for most needs.

The company said every home and business in the UK would have a broadband speed of at least 10 megabits per second (Mbps), fast enough to stream movies, video conference and browse the web. Properties will either be connected via the Openreach network through fibre-optic cables, the network of copper lines, or through the fixed wireless system, where connections use radio and, in some cases, satellite signals. BT said the cost of its plan would be between £450m and £600m and that 99 per cent of homes and businesses will be connected by 2020. BT made the offer after the government committed to a 10Mbps target under a Universal Service Obligation (USO). The government said it would now consider BT’s plan, while also conducting a consultation into whether it should introduce the USO in regulation.

Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix — along with their telecommunication industry foes —have not committed to sending their chief executives to testify before the US Congress in September on the future of network neutrality. Not a single one of those companies told the House Commerce Committee, which is convening the hearing, that they would dispatch their leaders to Washington (DC) in the coming weeks, even at a time when the Trump administration is preparing to kill the open internet rules currently on the government’s books.

The panel initially asked those four tech giants, as well as AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon, to indicate their plans for the hearing by July 31. For now, though, the committee said it isn’t giving up and would extend its deadline, as it continues its quest to engage the country’s tech and telecom business leaders on net neutrality. “The committee has been engaging in productive conversations with all parties and will extend the deadline for response in order to allow for those discussions to continue,” a spokesman said.