Reporting

On Sept 17, the House Communications Subcommittee held the hearing Trump FCC: Four Years of Lost Opportunities.

Comcast says that a broadband reseller illegally sold Comcast Internet service in residential buildings in the Denver area and has terminated the connections to those buildings. The shutoff affected hundreds of people who live in buildings serviced by AlphaWiFi, "which installs and services Internet in approximately 90 apartment buildings across Denver." The shutoff came as a surprise to residents, including Kaley Warren, who has been working at home during the pandemic. "It is my entire lifeline," said Warren, who said that without warning her Internet service disappeared. "I felt lost.

Broadband speeds in the US have ticked up on average since March, easing fears of network disruptions as businesses widened the use of videoconferencing and other data-heavy tools during the pandemic. But even with the gains, many work-from-home employees continue to struggle with patchy internet connections, especially workers living in rural regions, employers say. As of July, average home internet speeds across the U.S.

Federal Trade Commissioner Rebeca Kelly Slaughter agrees with FTC Chairman Joseph Simons that political speech is outside the agency’s purview. “We are not the political speech police,” she said. Commissioner Slaughter said tech’s liability shield — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — is an “important area to consider reform,” but she rejects the idea that the law requires companies to be viewpoint neutral. Two of Slaughter’s colleagues have proposed the FTC use its unique research authority to conduct a study on targeted advertising. “I think it is a good idea,” she said.

As the country’s most powerful newsmaker and the person in charge of a government that’s been aggressively pursuing antitrust cases against big tech companies, President Donald Trump does have leverage over Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. So the chief executive officer could be forgiven for flattering President Trump.

Powerful technology companies are expected to face increased scrutiny no matter who wins the Nov. 3 election, but President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden differ on some of the problems posed by Big Tech and how to solve them. President Trump and his appointees likely would maintain—and possibly accelerate—the broad-scale regulatory scrutiny of technology companies that marked his first term.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, California estimated that 1 million of its 6.2 million school kids didn't have the equipment they needed for virtual learning, prompting leaders from across the tech industry to immediately open their wallets to help. But six months later, with school back in session, only a fraction of the devices those contributions were supposed to purchase are actually in students' hands. Amassing these donations, it turns out, was the easy part.

Frontier Communications received a judge's stamp of approval for its bankruptcy exit financing. In the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Robert Drain approved Frontier's bankruptcy exit financing after the motion was unopposed by other stakeholders. 

Kenergy, an electric cooperative looking to provide broadband internet to unserved areas in west Kentucky, is waiting for the state to approve a waiver that would allow the project to move forward. Kenergy provides electricity to members in 14 counties. The nonprofit cooperative is hoping to eventually provide high-speed internet services to more than 44,000 unserved home and business members as well. But there is a hurdle. Under Kentucky law, regulated cooperatives, like Kenergy, can only borrow money to provide electricity — not for other services, like broadband.

As fall semester gets into full swing in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, schools are noticing a concerning trend: Low-income students are the most likely to drop out or not enroll at all, raising fears that they might never get a college degree.