Broadband
Navigate forward to interact with the calendar and select a date. Press the question mark key to get the keyboard shortcuts for changing dates.
Navigate backward to interact with the calendar and select a date. Press the question mark key to get the keyboard shortcuts for changing dates.
As the Internet has evolved from an occasional-use resource to a pervasive, always-on broadband ecosystem, the networking technologies underpinning it have developed faster than legal and regulatory frameworks can adjust. This has led to complex policy challenges that must be overcome to ensure that networks of the future can develop to their fullest potential. ITIF advocates for policies to accelerate deployment, access, and adoption of high-speed Internet, and encourage continued network innovation.
More Publications and Events
May 13, 2024|Press Releases
BEAD Program’s Fiber Bias Pushes States to Overspend on Broadband, Neglecting Other Causes of the Digital Divide, New ITIF Report Concludes
Congress has allocated more than $42 billion to bridge the “digital divide,” but that effort risks failing because the federal BEAD program encourages states to overspend on high-end fiberoptic infrastructure.
May 13, 2024|Reports & Briefings
BEAD Report: Grading States’ Initial Proposals for Federal Broadband Funds
Congress has allocated $42.5 billion to bridge America’s digital divide through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. To achieve that goal, states and territories must carefully craft plans to use their shares of the funds to the greatest possible benefit.
May 13, 2024|Reports & Briefings
BEAD Report: Interactive Dataviz
This visualization tool applies letter grades to states' plans to utilize the $42.5 billion allocated by Congress to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.
May 7, 2024|Books & Edited Volumes
Technology Fears and Scapegoats: 40 Myths about Privacy, Jobs, AI, and Today’s Innovation Economy
Available from Amazon and other booksellers: Technologies and tech companies are accused of creating a myriad of societal problems. Technology Fears and Scapegoats exposes them as mostly myths, falsehoods, and exaggerations. It issues a clarion call to restore the West’s faith in technological progress.
April 30, 2024|Testimonies & Filings
Amicus Brief to the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in the Case of Minnesota Telecom Alliance v. FCC
Brief of the International Center for Law & Economics and ITIF as amici curiae in support of petitioners and setting aside the Commission’s Order. The digital discrimination rule the FCC issued in its order is inconsistent with the IIJA. It is so expansive as to claim regulatory authority over major political and economic questions, and it is arbitrary and capricious.
April 30, 2024|Blogs
Congress Must Match Time and Money When Funding ACP With Spectrum Auctions
Spectrum auction authority and ACP extension have been difficult policy problems for over a year now. There is room for mutually reinforcing solutions to both, but that delicate balance should ensure that we don’t trade away long-term ACP sustainability.
April 26, 2024|Blogs
Measuring Digital Literacy Gaps Is the First Step to Closing Them
Digital literacy is now a necessary skill on par with the ability to read or write. Yet, we have no clear system of measuring this type of literacy rate or comprehensive dataset that tells us where the U.S. population stands. Instead, there’s a piecemeal landscape of measuring digital literacy. Studies often cover members of particular groups rather than the population at large, and without a consensus on the measurement of universal digital literacy rates, we have no clear way of taking a data-driven approach to the problem—which is necessary if we want to solve it.
April 10, 2024|Testimonies & Filings
Testimony to FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez Regarding “Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet”
There is no more important broadband policy goal than realizing the benefits of connectivity for all Americans. The draft item’s decision to reclassify broadband as a Title II service is counterproductive to those values, and an FCC that prioritizes connectivity and the public interest would not adopt it.
March 25, 2024|Testimonies & Filings
Letter to Federal Communications Commission Regarding Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet
The Federal Communications Commission’s proposal proceeding to reclassify broadband Internet access service as a Title II common carrier service endangers the success of the U.S. broadband ecosystem and the long-term benefits of connectivity to all Americans.
January 22, 2024|Blogs
Fact of the Week: A 10 Percent Increase in Digital Connectivity Reduces Trade Costs by 2 Percent
A November 2023 working paper found that a 10 percent increase in digital connectivity reduced trade costs by about 1.5–2 percent.