Upcoming policy issue

Around the world, governments are moving simultaneously to limit the power of tech companies with an urgency and breadth that no single industry had experienced before. Their motivation varies.

To make the most of technology’s future, the United States again needs a bold infrastructure plan that will create a springboard for new jobs, sustained competitiveness, and broader prosperity. While many details and the need for compromise lie ahead, we believe President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan, or AJP, points in the right direction. Broadband has become the electricity of the 21st century, providing the lifeblood for jobs, healthcare, and education. But like electricity in the 1930s, it hasn’t reached tens of millions of people.

President Joe Biden continued to push the notion that connecting Americans to broadband internet should be classified as infrastructure ahead of a meeting with members of Congress to negotiate the administration’s recent infrastructure and jobs plan. “I’m prepared to negotiate as to the extent of my infrastructure project as well as how we pay for it in a serious conversation about to do that,” President Biden said.

The COVID crisis has highlighted both the severity of the so-called "homework gap" and the shortcomings of early remedies like mobile hotspots and even low-cost home broadband plans. Now, more than a year into the pandemic, schools and cities across the country are increasingly testing novel ways to get students connected, not just for the duration of the pandemic, but for the long term.

The White House wants to lower broadband prices and make the industry more competitive — a sign that President Biden's approach to the telecom sector will be much tougher than his predecessors'. The White House infrastructure package included $100 billion for broadband deployment, with plans to channel funding to government-owned, non-profit or cooperative networks and a push to reduce prices. "A very positive signal that was sent — that should send chills up the spines of the incumbents — was recognizing that the market is not competitive and Americans generally are paying too much for bro

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission has asked the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to hold off on hearing a challenge to its response to the court's remand of its Restoring Internet Freedom net neutrality deregulation order, suggesting that challenge could ultimately be moot depending on how the new FCC deals with multiple petitions to reconsider that response. "Only one of the three Commissioners who voted for the Remand Order remains on the Commission, while two of the remaining Commissioners dissented, and one of those dissenters has since become the Acting Chairwoma

President Joe Biden sought to build public support for an expansive view of what it means to bolster US infrastructure, dismissing Republican arguments that his roughly $2.3 trillion plan devotes too little to projects like roads and bridges. President Biden defined his latest push in Congress as a way to drive an economy re-emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.

A coalition including broadband heavyweights AT&T, Charter, Comcast and Verizon is asking Congress and President Joe Biden to build off the recent $3.2 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit and craft “a long-term federally-funded broadband benefit program that the [Federal Communications Commission] would manage and administer to provide low-income individuals with enhanced fi

While antitrust lawsuits and Capitol Hill hearings get headlines, Big Tech's biggest threat in Washington may come from the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC is gearing up to flex its muscle, by both enforcing current rules and trying to draft new ones.

The American Jobs Plan's $100 billion in broadband funding would be spread out over a number of years, as the entire jobs plan is slated to "invest about $2 trillion this decade." Municipally owned networks, nonprofits, and co-operatives would play a major role in the expansion. The broadband industry and Republicans have been fighting city-owned networks for years, and nearly 20 states have laws that restrict the growth of municipal broadband.