Marguerite Reardon

COVID-19 shines light on 'digital divide' across the US

With the COVID-19 outbreak in full swing in the US, schools and businesses across the country are closing down, employees are being asked to rely on their broadband connections to work remotely and school-aged children are attending "school" remotely via the internet. But for large numbers of Americans, broadband connectivity simply isn't available

Broadband DATA Act, meant to improve FCC's broadband mapping, passes House again

The House passed a new version of a bill meant to improve the accuracy of maps detailing where broadband is and isn't available in the US. The legislation is now on a fast track to the Senate, where it's expected to pass before going to President Donald Trump for signing. The bipartisan Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act was passed by the House late in 2019 as part of a broader package of legislation intended to improve the Federal Communications Commission's broadband maps. The Senate also passed a version of the bill.

Electric cooperatives could be the key to solving the rural digital divide

In 1937, when only about 10 percent of Central Virginians in rural areas had electric service, a small group of citizens banded together to form the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative. With some help from a new federal loan program, they brought electricity to the mountainous, rural terrain, which encompasses areas such as the Blue Ridge Parkway and Appalachian Trail. Some 80 years later, that same co-op is working to connect its territory again, this time by bringing high-speed internet access to its 38,000 electricity members across parts of 14 counties. It's not an easy job.

The biggest tech issues in the 2020 presidential election

As the 2020 presidential election heats up next year, big tech will be front and center as candidates and members of Congress grapple with questions touching online privacy, antitrust, access to broadband and more. While impeachment hearings have divided the country, when it comes to the big tech issues of the day, Republicans and

Why flawed broadband speed tests have devastating consequences

The question of just how fast your home internet service is seems pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, how the broadband industry gets at the answer is messy and complicated, and over the last few weeks, that's caused controversy. The stakes are high.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai argues a patchwork of state regulations is bad for business

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai worries a patchwork of local and state regulations on internet technologies could hurt the  competitiveness of the US in the tech sector. He made the case for harmonizing regulation among federal and state and local governments.

Comcast's Internet Essentials delivers low-cost broadband to people with disabilities

Of the more than 56 million people in the US who have a disability, many haven't been able to afford service or have lacked the digital training to access the internet. The result is that Americans with disabilities are three times more likely than those without a disability to say they never go online. When compared with those who don't have a disability, disabled adults are roughly 20 percentage points less likely to say they subscribe to home broadband and own a traditional computer, a smartphone or a tablet.

FCC's Pai targets Lifeline fraudsters, but doesn't propose a funding cap

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is looking to root out waste, fraud and abuse in Lifeline, the FCC's phone subsidy program for the poor. But he's not ready to cap the budget on the program just yet. His office began circulating its latest proposal for cleaning up the program. The latest proposed action is what the FCC is calling an "administrative clean-up" but it doesn't tackle some of the more controversial items on the agency's to-do list, such as instituting a funding cap and excluding wireless resellers from participating in the program.

What Dish swooping in to save T-Mobile-Sprint means for you

The fate of T-Mobile and Sprint's $26.5 billion merger may hinge on whether a federal judge sees satellite TV provider Dish Network as a viable fourth competitor in the US wireless market. But there isn't an easy answer -- especially when you balance its history of ignoring its obligations to build a wireless network with its newfound ambitions sparked by the mobile megamerger. Dish has been a major player in several past wireless auctions. And for years, the company sat on its assets without any plans for deployment.

One year after net neutrality: What you need to know

It's been a year since the Obama-era network neutrality protections, which ensure all internet traffic is treated equally, came off the books. The fight continues as net neutrality activists plan protests June 11 to mark the first anniversary. Senate Democrats are also trying to force a vote on the Save the Internet Act, which the House passed in April. The legislation would restore the Federal Communications Commission's authority to police the internet and would restore the 2015 rules, including a ban on blocking, throttling or paid prioritization.  

Millions of Americans still can't get broadband. Here’s a potential fix

USTelecom, an industry group representing carriers like AT&T, CenturyLink, and others serving rural America, says it may have the fix for broadband mapping that will provide far more granularity in the data than ever before. The lobbying group will work with other telecom industry groups, including WISPA, which represents fixed wireless providers, and ITTA, which represents smaller rural carriers, to pilot a new mapping program in two states: Virginia and Missouri. They say the program will lead to the creation of a better, more accurate nationwide broadband deployment map.

Republicans say they want net neutrality rules, too

A Q&A with Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). 

Democrats leading the Save the Internet Act are pushing for a vote in April, with or without Republicans

A Q&A with House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA).

Tim Berners-Lee still believes the web can be fixed, even today

30 years on, the web has been "hijacked by crooks" who could destroy it, world wide web creator Tim Berners-Lee said. It's morphed into a platform where disinformation spreads like a contagion, hate foments and personal privacy has been relinquished to the highest bidder looking to make a quick buck. Now, the 63-year-old said, he's working to fix the online world he helped create, and launched two major efforts in Nov to turn the web around. The first is the Contract for the Web, which he says will make the web more trustworthy and less susceptible to some of today's problems.

FCC Chairman Pai acknowledges Russians interfered in net neutrality debate

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that roughly 500,000 comments submitted during the debate over the controversial repeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules were linked to Russian email addresses. The disclosure was made in a statement in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by The New York Times and BuzzFeed. In the statement, Chairman Pai refers to "the half-million comments submitted from Russian e-mail addresses."

Net neutrality faces its own election challenge in heated midterms

With less than a week to go now before the midterm elections, one of the biggest questions is whether younger voters will show up at the polls. Democrats have seized on network neutrality as an issue to get them to vote. Sen Brian Schatz (D-HI) has said the net neutrality issue could excite and mobilize a sliver of the electorate in a way that's reminiscent of how the National Rifle Association has mobilized voters to passionately protect Second Amendment rights. "It may not be as important to 60 percent of the public," Sen Schatz said in 2017.

Chairman Pai and Commissioner Rosenworcel say we need a 'national mission' to fix rural broadband

One thing Democrats and Republicans do agree on: The digital divide undercutting rural America needs to be fixed. But figuring out the details of achieving this goal is where the two sides diverge. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel agreed what's really needed to bring broadband to every American is a national vision on the scale of what the US government did when it brought electricity to rural America in the 1930s.

Why rural areas can't catch a break on speedy broadband

In spite of the billions of dollars in private investment and government subsidies over multiple decades, the numbers still paint a disturbing picture. Roughly 39 percent of rural Americans lack access to high-speed broadband, compared with just 4 percent of urban Americans. The internet that rural Americans can access is slower and more expensive than it is for their urban counterparts. And to add insult to injury, the rural population generally earns less than those in urban areas.  Building networks in rural America is incredibly expensive, and in some places it's nearly impossible.

Judge Kavanaugh defends his net neutrality dissent in Senate hearing

During his second day of Senate confirmation hearings, Judge Brett Kavanaugh defended his dissent in a federal court decision that upheld the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 net neutrality rules. Pressed by Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) why he disagreed with the rest of his colleagues on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that the Federal Communications Commission was within its authority to create the rules, Judge Kavanaugh said he was simply following legal precedent and wasn't looking to strip the agency of its power.

Is the Trump administration's re-killing of net neutrality a big deal?

The Federal Communications Commission has already repealed net neutrality, but the Trump administration can't leave it there. It also wants the Supreme Court to remove a ruling that upheld the controversial Obama-era rules. Is this a big deal? It depends on who you ask. While the request is somewhat unusual, not many cases upholding government regulation are followed by a repeal of that regulation, some legal experts say remanding the decision is just a bit of legal housecleaning. But net neutrality supporters disagree.

The FCC's net neutrality comments debacle: What you need to know

Network neutrality may be dead, but questions remain about how seriously the Federal Communications Commission considered comments from the public. "To put it simply, there is evidence in the FCC's files that fraud has occurred and the FCC is telling law enforcement and victims of identity theft that it is not going to help," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said in Dec. "Failure to investigate this corrupted record undermines our process for seeking public input in the digital age."

Why net neutrality supporters are cringing at the AT&T-Time Warner merger

Historians may look back on this week as a turning point in the evolution of the internet. First came the end of net neutrality rules which ensured that broadband and wireless providers couldn't act as gatekeepers picking and choosing who succeeds on the internet and who doesn't. Then a federal judge decided to allow AT&T, one of the largest broadband and wireless providers in the country, and Time Warner, a major media company, to merge without any conditions.

Lawmakers want Facebook's help providing rural broadband

Mark Zuckerberg appeared on Capitol Hill to talk about data privacy. But several lawmakers from rural parts of the country used the opportunity to ask the Facebook CEO to help bring high-speed internet access to their rural constituents. Facebook has rolled out several initiatives to bring low-cost and free broadband to hard to reach areas of the world, such as India and Africa. Now US lawmakers say they'd like to talk to Zuckerberg about focusing those efforts closer to home.

No, AT&T hasn't created internet fast lanes. But...

Is AT&T carving out lanes on the internet and offering the speediest service to the highest bidder, while leaving all other internet traffic relegated to "slow lanes"? Not exactly. AT&T hasn't introduced a new service that explicitly prioritizes one type of traffic over another. But that doesn't mean that it isn't offering other services that might run afoul of the strict network neutrality restrictions that are set to expire soon.