Lobbying

Ligado Networks LLC overcame powerful opposition to its proposed broadband network with some help from inside-the-Beltway figures close to President Donald Trump’s White House. The Reston (VA)-based company prevailed with a costly persuasion campaign overseen by a blue-chip roster of lobbyists and board members.

As the markets crash and foreshadow a potential economic downturn, some people in the tech industry are also asking what Washington can do for them — particularly as Congress weighs stimulus packages to protect future structure of the American economy. Here's what to watch when it comes to the tech industry and the coronavirus recovery effort.

From an office in London's diamond district, Ben Scott has his eyes set on Big Tech.

House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) and Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) sent a letter with members of their respective subcommittees, expressing serious concerns over the Justice Department’s handling of the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger.

Amid the mad dash to develop fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies, Shirley Bloomfield likes to remind people that vast swaths of America have other hurdles to clear first. “As everybody gets super excited about 5G ... we just tell them in rural America we’re still waiting for 1G in some areas,” said the CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association.

ITTA-The Voice of America's Broadband Providers "will be shutting its doors effective January 31, 2020 after over a one-quarter century representing wireline communications service providers in Washington." ITTA cited "financial constraints in the wireline service provider sector" for shutting its doors, saying those financial challenges had been "insurmountable." Broadband providers still have a voice via ACA Connects, which represents smaller and midsized providers, NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, NTCCA-The Rural Broadband Association, USTelecom, CTIA and others. 

The tech industry's most consequential policy fights in 2020 will play out in the states, not Washington (DC). Momentum on a range of tech issues, from governing online privacy to regulating the gig economy, has stalled in DC as impeachment and election campaigns consume attention. State leaders and legislators are stepping in to fill the void. For example, California and Vermont are facing litigation over their attempts to impose their own net neutrality regulations after the Federal Communications Commission repealed the Obama-era open-internet rules. New York Gov.

When Amazon confirmed it was planning to launch 3,236 broadband internet-beaming satellites into low-Earth orbit, much of the media reported it as if it were a done deal—the latest, inevitable step in the corporation’s quest to conquer commerce, the cloud, and beyond. Amazon officials said the massive satellite constellation, called Project Kuiper, would one day provide low-latency, high-speed broadband to tens of millions of underserved people around the world, no doubt also connecting them to the wide world of Amazon offerings.

A Q&A with New York Times tech policy reporter David McCabe. 

When asked, "How is Silicon Valley having an impact on Washington (DC)?", McCabe said, "Washington has become intertwined with the Valley in lots of different ways. Every major tech company has ramped up its presence here. Small armies of lobbyists work Capitol Hill and a vast swath of the administration to fight attempts to regulate the industry or to shape the rules when they become inevitable."

The weaponization of nonprofit advocacy and service organizations has been ongoing in Sacramento (CA) (and Washington) for years, although it seems to have risen recently to new levels of duplicity and complexity. If you were hanging around Sacramento this legislative year, for example, you couldn’t help but run into The Nonprofit Alliance, a newly constituted advocacy group which claimed to be the voice of nonprofits.