Universal Broadband

Mark Zuckerberg pledged $1.5 million in aid to organizations assisting in Puerto Rico’s recovery from Hurricane Maria, together with direct assistance from Facebook’s connectivity team to help the country get back online.

The hurricane left 80 percent of the island without power, and citizens have faced intense shortages of food, fuel, and drinking water in the seven days since landfall. The $1.5 million donation is split between the World Food Programme, an anti-hunger organization, and NetHope, a consortium of non-profits that works to improve connectivity in undeveloped or disaster-stricken areas. Zuckerberg asked concerned followers to donate to Save The Children, which is working to distribute aid on the island. Zuckerberg emphasized the importance of communications in the recovery effort. “With 90% of cell towers on the island out of service, people can't get in touch with their loved ones, and it's harder for rescue workers to coordinate relief efforts,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We're sending the Facebook connectivity team to deliver emergency telecommunications assistance to get the systems up and running.” The company also plans to use donated Facebook ad space to share critical information with Puerto Rican users, although the ads will be of little use until power and connectivity is restored.

AT&T rural broadband expansion via Connect America Fund-supported fixed wireless service now reaches 160,000 locations across 18 states. Nine states were recently added. The expansion nearly doubles the reach since AT&T’s last update on the service in June 2017. Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin join Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. AT&T has plans to reach 400,000 locations by the end of this year, and over 1.1 million locations by 2020. The Connect America Fund, the Federal Communications Commission’s program to expand rural broadband access.

In rural America slow internet can mean more than missing shows on Netflix. Poor service limits access to health, business, and education opportunities that are readily available in urban locations with fast networks.

So far, major telecommunication companies have kept their attention on urban markets. Even when they have made the effort to tackle rural access, they have later scaled back on their commitments. Why? Customers were using too much data on their “unlimited” service plans. It’s an easy economic decision for them to make, but it doesn’t help the 39 percent of rural Americans living without high-speed internet access. In place of private companies, federal funding has been crucial in deploying rural broadband. But the level of funding has not kept pace with technology. As internet speeds get faster, the technology and infrastructure required to provide them becomes more expensive. While experts debate how to deploy broadband and what level of funding should be directed toward fostering adoption, the Federal Communications Commision seems to have an entirely different solution, and it’s not what you might expect.

On Sept 21, the Open Technology Institute filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission about the availability of broadband across the United States.

In its comments, OTI explained that mobile broadband is not a substitute for fixed broadband—they are complements. Mobile services are generally more expensive, less reliable (particularly in rural areas), slower, and are also subject to restrictive data caps and expensive overage fees. Consumers also typically access mobile broadband on portable devices with smaller screens and limited computational abilities that cannot complete the full range of functions of a desktop or laptop computer for work, entertainment, and educational purposes. OTI also urged the FCC to continue steadily increasing its speed benchmarks to reflect the changing nature of fixed broadband.

AT&T says the latest claims that it is ignoring the broadband needs of low-income residents in Detroit are false and that it continues to enhance speeds. In a new complaint filed at the Federal Communications Commission, the telecommunications company has been accused of ignoring the broadband needs of low-income residents in Detroit. The practice is called “digital redlining,” a process of income-based discrimination carried out against lower-income neighborhoods.

“We do not redline,” AT&T said. “Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is unparalleled." AT&T added that its network investments are in line with the rules set by the FCC's Communications Act and that it will present its side of the story. "Our investment decisions are based on the cost of deployment and demand for our services and are of course fully compliant with the requirements of the Communications Act," AT&T said. "We will vigorously defend the complaint.”

Without a Net: The Digital Divide in America – a new documentary from Academy Award nominee Rory Kennedy and Verizon – focuses on the deep inequalities in America's education system that are keeping millions of students in digital darkness. The film, narrated by Academy and Grammy Award winner Jamie Foxx, and premiering on National Geographic at 10 p.m. ET on Tuesday, September 26th, spotlights the 'haves' and 'have nots' as it relates to technology in classrooms and presents the emotional and economic impact on students who lack access.

The film presents in-depth interviews with students, parents, educators, administrators and learning experts across the U.S., especially those from disadvantaged areas, and the frustrations, anxieties and challenges of trying to create a modern, tech-focused learning environment to ensure students are prepared to join the global digital workforce. Education experts weigh in on the serious inequalities in access and funding, as well as the need for multi-faceted solutions to close the technology gap.

Allow me to quickly reiterate my call for five policies I believe can help move the needle when it comes to digital inclusion. We have seen how the phenomenal success of low-power FM (LPFM) is playing out in local communities across this country. The first call I wish to make, is for us to find ways, in which to replicate and enhance this success story for more underrepresented groups – that are largely minority and women – who are seeking to be a part of the broadcast landscape. Second, in recent years, I have called for the establishment of a pilot incubator program, aimed at increasing the number of women and minority owners in the broadcast space. Third, when divestitures are required during merger transactions, we should urge parties to strongly consider offers from women and minority business owners. Fourth, the time to act on the Commission’s independent programming NPRM is now. With a robust record of more than 36,000 filings, I believe we have enough data to move to a final order, targeting two of the worst offending practices facing many independent video programmers: “unconditional” most favored nation clauses, and unreasonable alternative distribution method provisions. And lastly, with the help of Congress, we can and should reinstate a tax certificate program, focused on promoting opportunities for new entrants.

Attorney Daryl Parks says he is filing a second complaint against AT&T at the Federal Communications Commission Sept 25 seeking an investigation and hearing of AT&T over what he says is digital redlining. Redlining is avoiding building out broadband to low-income minority communities in favor of more affluent ones. Parks filed the initial complaint in Aug on behalf of three residents of Cleveland.

The latest complaint is on behalf of two middle income Detroit residents. They allege, backed by what Parks says was an independent study backing up the claim, that "wealthier and predominantly white areas have gotten premium upgradable high speed broadband access at bullet speed," while the three complainants "receive slow speeds at a rate as low as 1.5 mbps downstream or less, although they pay AT&T for high speed access." Complainants argue that is unjust and unreasonable discrimination in violation of the Communications Act. They also allege that is part of a pattern of discrimination by AT&T nationwide.

With the growing use of the Internet for information, education, job hunting, and other activities, its economic value increases. The incidence of in-home Internet subscriptions, however, varies across households, and Native American households are less likely than other American households to subscribe to Internet services. The lack of universality has, potentially, enormous consequences for households not subscribing to the Internet. Using descriptive statistics and logistic regressions we find that the growth of U.S. Internet subscriptions may have peaked and exhibited a small decline between 2012 and 2015; technology adoption has reached the third stage of the S-curve. Internet adoption in Native American households, however, may not have fully reached into the third stage. While rural-urban location is a small factor for non-Native American households, it remains a major factor for Native American households.

While the Lifeline program was a crucial step toward providing low-income Americans with internet access, it’s also become the target of uproarious criticism. The reason? A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study recently reported waste and fraud in Lifeline, and the immense backlash even prompted two Congressional hearings on the matter, both of which largely served as opportunities for senators to publicly tear into the program for alleged “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Thing is, these claims are based on outdated data, given that the Federal Communications Commission has implemented several significant and targeted reforms to root out fraud in the time since the agency collected its data. Weakening the Lifeline program poises the vicious cycle of wealth and opportunity disparity to be passed onto the next generation—and potentially beyond. We shouldn’t allow that to happen.