Research

As ownership of mobile phones, especially smartphones, spreads rapidly across the globe, there are still notable numbers of people in emerging economies who do not own a mobile phone, or who share one with others. A Pew Research Center survey in 11 emerging economies finds that a median of 6% of adults do not use phones at all, and a median of 7% do not own phones but instead borrow them from others. The mobile divides are most pronounced in Venezuela (32%), India (30%) and the Philippines (27%), countries where about three-in-ten adults do not own a mobile phone.

The United States leads the world in gigabit broadband, with 68.5 million people having the service available to them, according to a gigabit availability report from VIAVI Solutions. Gigabit connectivity is available for 354 million people across 51 countries worldwide. This is about five percent of the global population. At 61.5 million people, China has moved ahead of South Korea as the country with the second most people with gigabit availability. That total represents an increase of over 41 million with access in August 2019.

GAO was asked to review funding reforms and fraud controls the Federal Communications Commission has implemented for rate-of-return carriers. This report examines the extent to which FCC: (1) has implemented funding reforms specific to rate-ofreturn carriers, and (2) is managing fraud risks for the high-cost program in accordance with leading practices. One of the reforms that GAO reviewed established a funding mechanism for the carriers whereby FCC determines the level of financial support to provide the carriers based on cost and revenue estimates produced by a model.

On November 14, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the House Commerce Committee held a markup session on nine bills. Of note were two bills aimed at improving broadband data collection so policymakers have a better sense of where networks reach -- or don't reach. As we reported in September, there's a general consensus that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) isn't doing a good enough job collecting broadband data. The bills passed with little debate or controversy. But how will they help?

Almost half of US counties face a “double burden” of chronic disease and a need for greater broadband connectivity, according to a new report filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The report comes from an advisory committee that was set up to identify barriers to telehealth and recommend solutions. The majority of “double burden” areas fall into what the report calls “clusters” of five or more counties with total populations exceeding 100,000.

Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s is a magnum opus of broadband policy for the forthcoming decade. While there are dozens of important insights offered by the paper, perhaps the most important, are those focused on solutions to connect students who lack broadband access at home. According to estimates, 70% of teachers reportedly assign homework that requires internet access. Yet, according to the FCC’s 2019 Broadband Deployment Report, 39.8% of homes do not subscribe to high-speed broadband.

The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology advanced nine bills in a markup session Nov 14. Eight of the bills moved with little controversey:

A partnership between the telecommunications company and technology company NEC is looking at whether the fiber-optic networks coursing through cities can be used to glean real-world intelligence. Vehicle counts, traffic slow-downs and other pieces of data central to traffic management may one day be gleaned from a city’s fiber-optic communications network.

The largest cable and telephone providers in the US – representing about 96% of the market – acquired about 605,000 net additional broadband Internet subscribers in 3Q 2019, compared to a pro forma gain of about 600,000 subscribers in 3Q 2018. These top broadband providers now account for about 100.6 million subscribers, with top cable companies having 67.1 million broadband subscribers, and top telephone companies having 33.5 million subscribers. Findings for the quarter include:

Thousands of local newspapers have closed in recent years. Their disappearance has left millions of Americans without a vital source of local news and deprived communities of an institution essential for exposing wrongdoing and encouraging civic engagement.