Localism

Small-scale internet projects are far from perfect. They can struggle for lack of money, technology problems, or failures to get residents involved. But some people who are pushing for better and more fair online access in the United States say that small-scale internet networks, in combination with savvier government funding and policies, are part of the solution to America’s digital divide.

Here are a few things a community can do to show an ISP that it wants it:

In October 2019, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society issued Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s. The agenda was comprehensive, constructed upon achievements in communities and insights from experts across the nation. The report outlined the key building blocks of broadband policy—deployment, competition, community anchor institutions, and digital equity (including affordability and adoption).

The Federal Communications Commission took action to reduce regulatory barriers to 5G deployment by further streamlining the state and local government review process for modifications to existing wireless infrastructure that involve excavation and deployment beyond existing site boundaries.

Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) released a  report showing the impact of the transformation of news online and the accompanying loss of revenue. The report shows one factor of the revenue loss is the unfair and abusive practices by tech platforms. The impact of these practices indicates the need for Congress to provide the Federal Trade Commission new authority to protect the local news industry. The report closely examines the unfair and abusive practices by major tech platforms that have contributed to the drastic revenue declines.

A growing number of local governments are coming to see fiber broadband networks as essential infrastructure for the 21^st century, infrastructure that is capable of driving and supporting simultaneous progress in just about every area of significance to their communities. This includes economic development, education, health care, environmental protection, energy, transportation, government services, digital equity, and much more.

It is a privilege to address this conference, and to talk about the important job we have of protecting access to the scarce resource that is our nation’s airwaves, promoting the core principles of localism, diversity, and competition, and ensuring that broadcasters first and foremost serve the public interest. I look forward to engaging with you as leaders in the industry on how to address the issues Hispanic and Latinx and other underrepresented broadcasters face, and exploring what we all can do to keep radio vibrant and strong. What can be done to increase these ownership numbers?

How can America’s communities secure the benefits of fiber-optic infrastructure? Our answer is that local governments need not accept a binary option of waiting for the private sector to solve the problem—which the private sector already would have done if it made business sense—or taking on the challenge entirely as a public enterprise. Rather, public-private collaboration can disrupt this binary and give communities options.

When the telecommunications industry was liberalised in Europe and North America in the 1980s and 1990s, it inherited a legacy of monopoly providers whose footprint was national or multi-regional in its character. The regulatory framework, particularly that adopted in EU member states, reflected this pattern of relatively homogeneous deployment achieved, in part, by decades of cross-subsidised pricing and universal service goals.

The Supreme Court will review a decades-old legal battle over whether the Federal Communications Commission can make media ownership rules less restrictive. In particular, the court will review a ban that has been in place since 1975, barring cross-ownership of TV stations and newspapers in major American cities (although some exceptions have been made). The ban has gained renewed interest from the FCC in recent years. In October 2017, the FCC voted to remove the ban, along with restrictions on local media advertising.