Publications: Joe Kane

Maryland’s proposed broadband price controls for low-income households would undermine investment and fail to solve affordability, leaving vulnerable families worse off than a consumer-focused voucher approach would.

ITIF urges NTIA to use BEAD nondeployment funds to close the digital divide by targeting broadband adoption barriers while rejecting subsidies for profitable private ventures, overbuilding, regulatory inefficiencies, or clawing back funds contrary to the statute’s purpose.

California’s broadband affordability debate is being skewed by analysis that ignores real-world consumer use and competition, and risks misdirecting policymakers away from solutions that actually help low-income households.

The Commission should pursue the policy end of preventing contraband phones in a way that complies with the law and properly accounts for the costs and benefits of alternative solutions. Under both rubrics, jamming is unlikely to be the best solution.

Claims that broadband service is becoming less affordable rely on selective data and abstract comparisons, while consumer-level price trends show the opposite—and point to targeted solutions to continue lowering prices for the average household.

The C band is a crucial first component of the OBBBA’s spectrum pipeline. The Commission can make the most of this pipeline by aggressively pursuing as much spectrum as possible for the most productive commercial use possible while ensuring flexibility to account for real-world technological developments.

The FCC is right to seek regulatory changes that would facilitate greater flexibility and thus more intensive use of upper microwave spectrum. The NPRM’s proposals should be tailored to maximize parties’ flexibility without pulling the rug out from under parties that have paid for protection from harmful interference.

If the year ahead in technology and innovation policy lives up to its potential, it could be a consequential one because there is a long list of important issues on the table. Herein, we offer 10 that are on top of our minds.

The Commission should keep its focus on how to enable consumers to benefit from wireless services and prevent state and local red tape from undermining those benefits.

The Commission is right to seek to remove regulatory impediments that hinder licensees from complying with their licenses and serving consumers, but the Public Notice rests on flawed premises that lead it to propose unwise and ineffective policy.