Phone and electric cooperatives may be best equipped to spread fiber broadband across rural America, but are often overlooked, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance reported Tuesday. USTelecom said deploying broadband in rural areas is a priority for its big ISP members and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said it’s best to support incumbent ISPs except in the most unserved areas. The Phoenix Center supported cooperatives deploying broadband so long as they don’t partner with municipal networks.
House Communications and Digital Commerce subcommittees are expected to delve further into their concerns about tech companies' data privacy policies during a Wednesday hearing, we are told. The hearing, on how use of algorithms affects consumer privacy and choice with online content, follows scrutiny elsewhere on Capitol Hill last month about tech firms' handling of online advertising in Russian-led disinformation campaigns during the 2016 U.S. presidential election (see 1711210025, 1711020001 and 1711210025). The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
The Supreme Court takes up a landmark digital privacy case Wednesday with implications for protections for cloud-based data, lawyers told us. Privacy advocates told us hope the court will rule warrants must be obtained for government to access cellphone location information. Law enforcement access is at the heart of Carpenter v. U.S. challenging whether the government’s search of convicted criminal Timothy Carpenter's cellphone records, relying on a law predating modern digital capabilities, was a Fourth Amendment violation (see 1706050006).
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Republican colleagues made the case Tuesday for repeal of Title II net neutrality regulation under the Communications Act (see 1711220026). Return to "regulatory restraint" of Title I broadband treatment would promote investment and innovation while protecting consumers and competition, including through transparency rules and renewed FTC broadband enforcement, Pai said in a speech at an R Street and Lincoln Network event. He defended his proposed draft ruling and orders against criticisms, including from Hollywood celebrities, and went on the offensive against internet edge providers, which he said were a bigger threat to an open internet than broadband ISPs were. Edge entities disagreed with the criticism.
The emergence of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, as a Capitol Hill GOP opponent of the FCC’s draft order to rescind 2015 net neutrality rules underlines widespread perceptions lawmakers can't reach a deal on compromise legislation on that issue before the end of this Congress, Hill aides and observers told us. Prospects for net neutrality legislation have been dim all year (see 1702030044, 1707130063, 1708070068 and 1708300050). Democrats appear to be increasingly confident in remaining stridently opposed to a deal amid expectations of a legal challenge against the FCC and eagerness to feature the issue in the 2018 midterms, lobbyists said.
Court decisions for and against local one-touch, make-ready policies may complicate larger broadband infrastructure policy debate, observers told us Monday. Last week in an order (in Pacer) on consolidated lawsuits by AT&T and Comcast, U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts in Nashville permanently enjoined the city from requiring OTMR. But in August, U.S. District Court in Louisville rejected an AT&T lawsuit challenging that city’s similar OTMR ordinance (see 1708210045). After the Nashville order, a city councilman and AT&T urged the city to reopen private talks with companies about pole-attachment processes rather than perpetuate litigation.
Legal challenges to an FCC draft "internet freedom" order face a daunting task, said supporters of Chairman Ajit Pai's proposals, and one analyst agreed, but some net neutrality advocates are more hopeful of a challenge's prospects. Pai last week circulated a draft to undo Title II broadband classification and net neutrality regulation under the Communications Act, and is planning a Dec. 14 vote; fellow Republican commissioners are supportive, minority Democrats opposed (see 1711220026 and 1711210020).
Cheap and easy-to-use distributed denial of service attack services are driving up the rate of DDoS attacks and exploiting insecure IoT devices, cyber experts said. For less than $100, DDoS-for-hire services can easily take a company down, Corero Network Security CEO Ashley Stephenson told us. Corero's third quarter report showed a 35 percent uptick in DDoS attacks, and Akamai recently reported a 28 percent hike in attacks in the second quarter, notable after three quarters of decline. Neustar’s twice yearly cyber report said attackers are “quite proficient at achieving higher breach rates while using fewer DDoS attacks.”
It's unclear how much demand there will be for the growing number space launch facilities that are being established in the U.S., driven in part by the expected low earth orbit (LEO) satellite boom. "I characterize the next decade as the Roaring '20s," with capital markets supporting numerous launch businesses, showing optimism launch demand will be big, said Southwest Research Institute Chairman-Commercial Spaceflight Federation Alan Stern. Within a decade, there might be a modest increase in the number of launches per year, "but not dramatic growth," the one exception being expected sizable growth suborbital space activity like commercial manned spaceflight, countered Bryce Space and Technology analyst Phil Smith.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr disputed criticism that net neutrality would be scrapped under an "internet freedom" draft ruling and orders targeted for a December vote. "The claim that we're getting rid of net neutrality is not true," he said in an interview Friday. He said 2015 Title II broadband regulation under the Communications Act, which the draft would undo, isn't needed to uphold net neutrality. "We have numerous robust consumer protections in this order," he said, referring to draft decisions to empower FTC oversight and other safeguards.