Reporting

On this special live episode of Tech on the Rocks, Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate Gigi Sohn sits down with former Federal Communications Commission Acting Chair and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn as well as Benton Senior Fellow and Former FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet to discuss the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society's new report: Broadband for America Now. The report, authored by Sallet, lays out a bold vision for delivering robust broadband to all Americans, regardless of geography and socio-econo

Buried in the recent pandemic relief bill passed just before the end of 2020 was the DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act, a bipartisan attempt to make it easier for government agencies to set up official websites with a .gov domain, as opposed to other options such as .com or .org. If the bill works as intended, it could help combat fraud and add credibility to government websites, and proponents of the measure consider it a step in the right direction for cybersecurity.

In what they say is a first, five electric cooperatives in three states have formed an association of broadband co-ops aimed at bolstering services in underserved rural areas. The Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Broadband Cooperatives (VMDABC) is structurally modeled after existing cooperative associations. VMDABC will offer classes of membership based on types of co-op members and their goals. VMDABC classes of membership will include co-op affiliates offering retail fiber, co-ops pursuing middle mile or “backbone” fiber, other broadband entities, and vendors.

Dozens of state lawmakers from Massachusetts urged Comcast to halt enforcement of its 1.2TB monthly data cap, saying the cap hurts low-income people during the pandemic and is unnecessary because of Comcast's healthy network capacity. The letter to Comcast Senior VP Mark Reilly, spearheaded by MA State Reps Andy Vargas and Dave Rogers, disputed Comcast's claim that a 1.2TB cap only affects a very small subset of customers it calls "super users." The lawmakers also wrote that "Massachusetts has experienced the largest relative increase of food-insecure individuals in the nation due to COVID-

The office of Federal Communications Commissioner Nathan Simington said it is uncertain if he could participate in any Section 230 proceeding. Simington’s office said FCC ethics counsel advised “as there is no currently-pending Section 230 matter before the commission to be discussed with specificity, it could not comprehensively rule out potential recusal in the future. However, no grounds were identified for recusal on this topic at this time.”

Although Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has yet to issue any plans for narrowing the liability protections for tech companies, as President Donald Trump and some conservatives want, he’s been keeping busy. Chairman Pai is attempting to knock out objectives by circulating proposals for votes rather than holding formal ones during the FCC’s last official meeting under him on Jan.

The new Congress just gaveled in Jan 3, but top lawmakers are already hashing out their priorities on tech policy. There’s bipartisan appetite for more broadband moves. Lawmakers made increasing broadband access a priority in the latest round of COVID-19 relief talks, allocating billions for the effort, but their work might not be through. Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) said one of his top priorities will be to “keep expanding rural broadband.” “It's so essential to make sure that we have it across the entire country,” he said.

Democrats for years have pressured Silicon Valley companies to address their poor track records on workforce diversity. Now they’re calling on President-elect Joe Biden to do the same for federal agencies that oversee the tech industry.

Michael Pack's stormy tenure over the federal agency that oversees government-funded broadcasters abroad - including the Voice of America - appears to be coming to a close. Yet President Donald Trump's appointee has sparked an internal outcry by taking bold steps to try to cement his control over at least two of the networks and to shape the course of their journalism well into the Biden administration. Pack, the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, also serves as chairman of the boards of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

The Christmas Day explosion that rocked Nashville caused considerable disruption, as it damaged a critical piece of the broader area’s telecommunications infrastructure. One of the major lines of inquiry was whether there was significance in the location of the blast: on a downtown street in front of an AT&T transmission building. The explosion created significant damage to the facility, causing widespread repercussions to telecommunication systems in Nashville and beyond. Officials said the outages have affected 911 operations and flights at Nashville International Airport.