Monday, July 31, 2023
Headlines Daily Digest
Community Technology and Digital Equity
Don't Miss:
Broadband Subsidy Programs Help Deliver Affordable Internet Access
Outcry Against AI Companies Grows Over Who Controls Internet’s Content
Congress Seeks Your Input on Universal Service Fund
Legislation
Digital Equity
Broadband Funding
Broadband Speeds
Satellites/Wireless
AI/Platforms/Social Media
TV
Antitrust
Security
Journalism
Company News
Stories From Abroad
Legislation
As part of the National Defense Authorization Act, the Senate passed bipartisan consumer protection legislation co-sponsored by Commerce Committee Chair Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-TX) to require pre-purchase disclosures for smart devices and appliances that have built-in microphones or cameras capable of recording or transmitting data. The Informing Consumers about Smart Devices Act now heads to the President’s desk. The Informing Consumers about Smart Devices Act requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create new disclosure guidelines for products that have audio or visual recording components, such as refrigerators, washers, dryers and dishwashers that are not clearly obvious. Many consumers don’t realize the growing number of household devices and appliances that include cameras and/or microphones that are capable of recording them and also include Wi-Fi capability to transmit data without their knowledge.
During an Executive Session, the Senate Committee on Commerce approved 11 bipartisan bills, including legislation aimed at protecting children’s online privacy: the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Other important bills approved included the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, the ORBITS Act, the TICKET Act, the COOL Online Act and several manufacturing bills. These bills now head to the Senate floor.
Approved:
- S. 447, ORBITS Act of 2023, as amended by:
- S. 1303, TICKET Act, as amended by:
- S. 1418, Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, as amended by:
- S. 1648, Launch Communications Act, as amended by:
- S. 1669, AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2023, as amended by:
- S. 2201, the American Cybersecurity Literacy Act, as amended by:
- S. 1421, Country of Origin Online Labeling Act, as amended by:
- S. 1409, Kids Online Safety Act, as amended by:
In a Full Committee markup, the House Commerce Committee advanced six bills including:
- H.R. 3385, the Diaspora Link Act, led by Rep. Plaskett, was forwarded to the Full House, as amended, by a roll call vote of 41 to 0.
- H.R. 3369, AI Accountability Act, led by Rep. Harder was forwarded to the Full House, as amended, by a roll call vote of 50 to 0.
- H.R. 4510, the NTIA Reauthorization Act of 2023, led by Rep. Latta was forwarded to the Full House, as amended by a roll call vote of 48 to 0.
Senator Fischer Leads Bill to Address “Last Acre” Connectivity, Expand Broadband Access Across Farmland and Ranchland
Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) introduced the Linking Access to Spur Technology for Agriculture Connectivity in Rural Environments (LAST ACRE) Act. This legislation would create a new Last Acre Program at the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Office of Rural Development aiming to expand network connectivity across farmland and ranchland. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) co-led the introduction of the legislation. Existing Rural Development programs support “last mile” broadband deployment, which connects broadband networks to rural households or businesses. The USDA lacks a program focused on extending connectivity across rural acreage, reaching the “last acre.” This last-acre connectivity is critical for farmers and ranchers looking to use precision agriculture technologies in their operations. The LAST ACRE Act would establish the Last Acre Program at USDA to expand high-speed broadband internet access. This access would support ubiquitous last acre coverage across eligible agricultural land, including farmland, ranchland, and farm sites. The bill would also direct USDA to update the Census of Agriculture to include questions that would discover insights into producers’ adoption of broadband internet access services. These updates would provide USDA with additional information about service speed and broadband usage purposes, including its use for precision agriculture technologies.
State and federal programs have improved the availability of high-speed internet, but cost remains the primary barrier to broadband adoption for low-income households. To address this, the federal government has created consumer subsidies, such as those included in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), to ease cost burdens. Research indicates that simplifying enrollment, working closely with community partners, and implementing a single, national policy focused on increasing access all can help boost participation. Researchers examined three approaches to subsidies: consumer subsidy programs, public benefit obligations, and public procurement programs. The results show that robust enrollment campaigns, community-first partnerships, and meaningful participation from internet service providers (ISPs) are essential components of successful programs.
No Home Left Offline Coalition Urge Governors To Take Action On Renewing The Affordable Connectivity Program
The No Home Left Offline Coalition has written to all 50 state governors, urging them to contact their congressional delegation to take action on renewing the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). There are 51.6 million households, including 17.7 million unconnected households, that are eligible for the ACP, making it a critical tool for closing America’s stubborn digital divide, of which two-thirds is due to affordability. In their letters, the Coalition, led by EducationSuperHighway, raises serious concerns that millions of under-resourced households, in every state would be impacted when funding for the ACP is projected to run out mid-2024. They point to an imminent digital cliff for 19.5 million households who currently rely on the ACP to cover the cost of their monthly internet service, arguing that if Congress does not refund the ACP in 2023, those families will soon see a big spike in their internet bill and potentially lose service entirely. This would occur just as states prepare to make the biggest broadband investments in history using their Broadband Access, Equity and Deployment (BEAD) allocation.
Community Technology NY (CTNY) offers an alternative vision of technology in which under-resourced communities and neighborhoods have direct control over their digital communications, allowing them to be owners and maintainers, not just consumers, of that technology. CTNY has critical expertise in facilitation, data gathering, analysis, strategic planning, and training. CTNY’s mission is to facilitate and support healthy, resilient, and sustainable community digital ecosystems, rooted in digital equity and digital justice. CTNY creates multiple engagement avenues for any coalition or the community, training residents to be Digital Stewards who maintain and sustain their community’s network. We facilitate landscape analysis, needs assessments, and technical training, to identify the needs of the community. And we work with Digital Stewards to identify viable and sustainable solutions to address those gaps and provide wraparound and support services. Building, training, and empowering coalitions in these communities is an essential foundational activity.
Broadband Funding
Rural Texas may lose out on billions in broadband infrastructure funding due to federal regulations
When Texas was awarded $3.3 billion in federal money toward expanding broadband infrastructure across the state, government leaders and telecommunication companies celebrated the news. With the federal funds, coupled with $1.5 billion from the state’s wallet, rural and underserved Texas communities finally saw a chance to catch up with technology in the rest of the country. As the state prepares to submit a five-year plan to federal agencies on broadband deployment, the finer details of who may qualify for federal money in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program has come into sharper focus. And rural Texas advocates and owners of smaller telecommunication companies worry the communities they serve will be shut out of the historic investment. Regulations require each telecommunication company applying for a grant to provide a letter of credit from a major bank that covers at least 25% of the proposed project — essentially putting millions of dollars on the table to apply for a grant it isn’t guaranteed to receive. This is a feasible task for big service providers with access to a qualified bank, but for rural companies, it’s a different story. For many of them, the requirement that they work with a major bank to secure funding is another hurdle in their efforts to bring broadband access to their own backyard. Kelty Garbee, executive director of Texas Rural Funders, said she understands the requirement exists to prevent people from accepting money but not following through with projects. However, she is concerned the rule disenfranchises rural providers.
Charter has now won $700 million in broadband funding since its big win in the 2018 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, said Jessica Fischer, the company’s chief financial officer. The funding will go toward buildouts to 300,000 locations, Fischer said. The gross cost of the buildouts for which Charter has won funding will be $1.7 billion, which suggests that Charter will contribute matching funds of about $1 billion for the builds. The buildout cost per passing to Charter will be $3,200, Fischer said. The company completed 68,000 subsidized rural passings this quarter, she noted. Charter likely will be winning more funding moving forward, as many states have American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding they have not yet awarded, and as the states are expected to begin making awards in the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program in 2024.
Millions of dollars are coming into Mississippi to get more families connected to high-speed internet. But there are still major gaps in the broadband coverage map. “We had the little Wi-Fi hotspot. But in order to use the Wi-Fi hotspot, you have to have a cell phone signal. And a lot of times we didn’t have a good cell phone signal where we were. So, it just washed everything completely out. And they never did get a good reading until she got to where she is now with high-speed internet," said Nathan Case, a pastor in Brookhaven (MS). “There is a major gap in southwest Mississippi,” explained Sally Doty, the Director of the Mississippi Broadband Expansion and Accessibility Office (BEAM). “And we’re talking about totally unserved service below 100, down, and 20 up," said Doty. The biggest reason being money. “In all of these areas that are unserved, it’s because there are more rural and low-density areas,” said Doty. “So, the financial case in the past to build it out has just not been there. It’s not good economics for companies.” Research shows that Conexon isn’t the only company to get federal grant money and not yet start to build out in parts of the state. Windstream and Aristotle also won bids in the 2020 auction. The grant awards for those three companies were a total of $96 million dollars but there hasn’t been any progress to show for it.
Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared with the other FCC Commissioners a draft Notice of Inquiry that would begin the process of raising the federal definition of broadband from 25/3 Mbps to 100/20 Mbps. In order for that to become the new definition, the FCC must work through the Notice of Inquiry process and eventually vote to adopt the higher speed definition. This raises a question of the purpose of having a definition of broadband. That requirement comes from Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that requires that the FCC make sure that broadband is deployed on a reasonable and timely basis to everybody in the country. The FCC interpreted that requirement to mean that it couldn’t measure broadband deployment unless it created a definition of broadband. The FCC uses its definition of broadband to count the number of homes that have or don’t have broadband. To give credit, Chairwoman Rosenworcel tried to get the FCC to increase the definition of broadband to 100/20 Mbps four years ago, but the idea went nowhere in the Ajit Pai FCC. But this is now too little too late; 100/20 Mbps is no longer a reasonable definition of broadband. In the four years since Chairwoman Rosenworcel introduced that idea, the big cable companies have almost universally increased the starting speed for broadband to 300 Mbps download. According to OpenVault, almost 90% of all broadband customers now subscribe to broadband packages of 100 Mbps or faster. 75% of all broadband customers subscribe to speeds of at least 200 Mbps. 38% of households now subscribe to speeds of 500 Mbps or faster. If 75% of all broadband subscribers in the country have already moved to something faster than 200 Mbps, then 100 Mbps feels like a speed that is already in the rearview mirror and is rapidly receding.
Satellites/Wireless
FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel Introduces New Spectrum Rules for Commercial Space Launches
Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared with her colleagues final rules to ensure spectrum certainty for communications services used during commercial space launches. As private companies have assumed a vital role in the launch and operation of space satellites, scientific exploration, and transportation of astronauts both for public and commercial purposes, they need access to reliable and predictable wireless communications services and these new rules, if adopted by a vote of the full FCC, will make that resource available. The rules would adopt a new allocation in the 2025 to 2110 MHz band for space operations on a secondary basis, expand the spectrum available for commercial space operations on secondary basis in the 2200 to 2290 MHz band from four channels to the entire band, and adopt licensing and technical rules for space launch operations. It also directs the Office of Engineering and Technology to issue a public notice opening a new docket for comments on the expanded federal use of the non-federal satellite bands. They would also amend the allocation for the 399.9 to 400.05 MHz band to permit the deployment of Federal space stations. This proposal also includes a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which would take further comment to inform possible further actions.
The tech billionaire has become the dominant power in satellite internet technology. The ways he is wielding that influence are raising global alarms.
CTIA’s annual survey of key industry metrics finds that wireless networks support more data traffic than ever:
- Wireless Data Traffic Soars: 2022 was another record-breaking year for wireless data traffic, with the nation’s wireless networks supporting more than 73.7 trillion MB of traffic—20 trillion MB, or 38%, more than in 2021. This is the greatest increase in mobile data traffic ever and nearly double the year-over-year increase from 2020 to 2021.
- Record Wireless Investment: Wireless investment has increased for the fifth year in a row, with a historic $39 billion invested in wireless networks in 2022—up nearly 12% from last year’s previously record-setting total.
- More Connections for More 5G Devices: 5G adoption and use have exploded since its launch. By the end of 2022, the US had nearly 162 million active 5G devices—nearly double the number of 5G devices in 2021.
- 5G Home Broadband Offers New Competition and Consumer Savings: 5G is not only transforming our mobile use, but our lives at home. 5G home broadband coverage is growing at a breakneck pace, and it now covers more than 94 million households across the nation.
- Small Cells Support Enhanced Coverage: In 2022, there were more than 142,000 small cells operating across the US—a 13% increase over 2021.
- Wireless Brings Savings for Consumers: Wireless continues to offer consumers more for their dollar in a tightening economy. The cost per megabyte of data decreased by 98 percent from 2012 to 2022.
- Talking and Texting by the Trillions: Wireless consumers continue to robustly use wireless networks to connect through voice and text. In 2022, Americans spent nearly 2.5 trillion minutes on voice calls, a nearly 5% increase from 2021.
A collective cry is breaking out as authors, artists and internet publishers realize that the generative-AI phenomenon sweeping the globe is built partly on the back of their work. The emerging awareness has set up a war between the forces behind the inputs and the outputs of these new artificial-intelligence tools, over whether and how content originators should be compensated. The disputes threaten to throw sand into the gears of the AI boom just as it seems poised to revolutionize the global economy. Artificial-intelligence companies including OpenAI, its backer Microsoft, and Google built generative-AI systems such as ChatGPT by scraping oceans of information from the internet and feeding it into training algorithms that teach the systems to imitate human speech. The companies generally say their data use without compensation is permitted, but they have left the door open to discussing the issue with content creators. Thousands of authors including Margaret Atwood and James Patterson signed an open letter demanding that top AI companies obtain permission and pay writers for the use of their works to train generative-AI models. Comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors also filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Facebook-parent Meta Platforms for allegedly training their AI models on illegal copies of their books that were captured and left on the internet. News publishers have called the unlicensed use of their content a copyright violation. Some—including Wall Street Journal parent News Corp, Dotdash Meredith owner IAC and publishers of the New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Politico—have discussed with tech companies exploring ways they might be paid for the use of their content in AI training, according to people familiar with the matter.
Charter Communications reported financial and operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2023.
- Second quarter total residential and small and medium business ("SMB") Internet customers increased by 77,000. As of June 30, 2023, Charter served a total of 30.6 million residential and SMB Internet customers;
- Second quarter total residential and SMB mobile lines increased by 648,000. As of June 30, 2023, Charter served a total of 6.6 million mobile lines;
- As of June 30, 2023, Charter had a total of 32.2 million residential and SMB customer relationships, which excludes mobile-only relationships.
T-Mobile reported second quarter 2023 results, delivering industry-best growth in postpaid customers driven by growth in postpaid phone gross additions coupled with the lowest postpaid phone churn in the industry for the first time ever.
- Postpaid net account additions of 299,000, best in industry;
- Postpaid net customer additions of 1.6 million, best in industry and raising guidance;
- Postpaid phone net customer additions of 760,000, best in industry and best Q2 in eight years;
- Ookla: In its latest Speedtest Global Index Market Analysis, T-Mobile dominated the competition, winning every single category for overall network for the third quarter in a row with undefeated 5G performance. T-Mobile’s network earned the top ranking for fastest mobile network, lowest latency, most consistent, best mobile video, best 5G performance and best 5G consistency;
- Opensignal: In its latest Network Experience Reports, T-Mobile took home several wins measuring overall network performance and 5G performance, including fastest download speeds (including 5G download speeds more than twice as fast as Verizon and AT&T), best overall live video experience, best overall consistent quality and best 5G availability;
- umlaut: In its latest 5G Network Performance Audit Report, T-Mobile once again received top honors with the overall highest 5G score including best 5G coverage, stability, and speeds.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and David L. Clay II (dclay AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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