Research

The Government Accountability Office was asked to review federal efforts to improve the resiliency of wireless networks following natural disasters and other physical incidents. This report examines: (1) trends in mobile wireless outages reported to Federal Communications Commission since 2009 and (2) actions federal agencies and industry have taken since 2013 (after Hurricane Sandy) to improve wireless network resiliency, among other objectives.

Frequent news of corporate mergers has generated an increased interest in antitrust issues in recent years. This paper examines the history of antitrust legislation in the U.S., discusses the longstanding debate around its purpose, and offers data to demonstrate that, in recent years, it has failed to stem the tide of corporate concentration or decreased competition—with serious consequences. The authors conclude by recommending four reforms to antitrust enforcement that should enjoy consensus.

Rural prosperity can only truly be achieved by connecting rural America to high-speed internet. It is critical to act quickly as the need for rural e-connectivity is growing every day. We must also ensure rural America won’t be left behind as we move toward nextgeneration networks like 5G, and emerging technologies like the Internet of Things. Prioritizing e-connectivity for rural America is the key to generating prosperity, investment, and innovation.

Objectives & Recommended Actions

Generally speaking, pollsters are ill advised to ignore cellphone users, if only because they’d be missing half of the country. But there’s another reason that pollsters need to include cell users: The demographics of those with and without access to landlines is stark. Nearly two-thirds of Hispanic adults in the United States live in households that are wireless-only. More than half of black adults and Asian adults do, as well.

Americans are relying less on television for their news. Just 50% of US adults now get news regularly from television, down from 57% a year prior in early 2016. But that audience drain varies across the three television sectors: local, network and cable. Local TV has experienced the greatest decline but still garners the largest audience of the three, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

In an effort to examine more deeply where people “draw the line” when it comes to online harassment, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey in which respondents were presented with fictional scenarios depicting different types of escalating online interactions. The survey then asked them to indicate which specific elements of the story they considered to be harassment. Their answers indicate that Americans broadly agree that certain behaviors are beyond the pale.

[Commentary] My research suggests that managers of local television, the most popular news source in the US, recognize the competitive value of investigative reports (I measured competition as the degree of similarity between stations in Nielsen market “shares”).

The first hard data on fake-news consumption has arrived. Researchers posted an analysis of the browsing histories of thousands of adults during the run-up to the 2016 election — a real-time picture of who viewed which fake stories, and what real news those people were seeing at the same time. The reach of fake news was wide indeed, the study found, yet also shallow.

Apple, facing questions from users and tech analysts about reduced performance in older iPhones, acknowledged that its latest software curtails the computing power of some models to prevent unexpected shutdowns. It was a rare statement from the company that shed light on how Apple internally dealt with a growing user complaint. The statement came two days after John Poole, founder of the computer-performance testing group Geekbench, wrote a blog post illustrating how iPhone computing performance slows as battery health declines on iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 devices.

High speed broadband creates potential productivity gains and has a positive impact on economic growth. Achieving Europe's broadband access objectives will require large scale investment in next generation broadband networks, and it is imperative that an appropriate investment climate is created to encourage fibre network rollout. This study considers whether and how competition in the DSL market affects the incentives of operators to invest in the deployment of high-end fibre optic networks.