Reading the Tea Leaves on What to Expect from the FCC in 2022

The FCC is primed to make a number of moves in the new year around robocalls, net neutrality, and rural broadband.

The new year is upon us. I hope that this one brings us way closer to what we knew as normal — politics aside. Like each new year, I hope that you’ll join me in looking to 2022 with optimism and hope. When it comes to communications regulations, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t look forward to seeing an end to pesky unsolicited robocalls offering extended car warranties or other mostly worthless goods and services. I also believe that there’s a real hope that new funding for widespread broadband deployment is here, and now it’s simply a question of spending the money and building the required infrastructure. With recent FCC changes, we have reason to be optimistic on these fronts and others.

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2021 Was the Year the Feds Got Serious About Cybersecurity

The Biden administration has addressed breaches as a matter of national security – and opened up a can of policy-implementation worms.
Almost from the beginning of the Biden administration early this year, the federal government, through its many branches and agencies, has taken a hard and continuously evolving look at improving cybersecurity across the spectrum of American enterprises. This push has primarily been focused on both improving cybersecurity itself, while also combatting the increasingly prevalent scourge of ransomware events. According to a September 2021 Bloomberg News article, ransomware alone became a $350 million criminal industry in 2020, with the bad guys paying particular attention to entities that hold large amounts of consumer data and sizable cyber insurance policies. To put an exclamation point on it, during the first week of December, the House of Representatives passed three bills with a two-third majority (who says Congress can’t get anything done if it’s properly motivated?) to address current and future cybersecurity issues.

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How the Infrastructure Bill Boosts Broadband Access

This infrastructure investment recognizes that under whatever name it’s called, the Internet has become a utility.
What can you buy for $65 billion? That kind of money could purchase one Big Mac for every citizen of the Russian Federation, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia combined — or build and upgrade the United States’ high-speed Internet infrastructure. According to the budget breakdown for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law on November 5, 2021—$65 billion has been allocated for the construction and upgrade of networks to provide quality high-speed Internet access. The permanent support of an existing program reduces the cost of Internet access for low-income consumers seeking to secure such services.

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President Biden’s FCC Appointees Could Shape Future Internet Access

In addition to ensuring broadband access to all, expect to see more focus on net neutrality and robocall enforcement.
Two of President Biden’s nominations to important roles within the Federal Communications Commission have been named. Jessica Rosenworcel, who has been acting FCC Chair since the change in administration, and Gigi Sohn, a well-known consumer advocate in matters relating to Net neutrality and counselor to former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler, were both formally named and will go to the Senate for confirmation. For many, myself included, who advocate for the return to Net neutrality, these nominations are powerful signals that telecommunications policies, not limited to Net neutrality, but other key issues as well—in particular robocall enforcement, are going to get significantly more attention, although even as acting Chair, Ms. Rosenworcel has taken strong steps against robocallers. Given the pro-consumer bent of both nominees, it’s fair to assume that such enforcement will only be ramped up going forward.

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AI & Trust: It’s Complicated

In a recent report, NIST identifies nine factors it deems necessary to create or support user trust when AI is in action. I add another.
With the power it brings to complex calculations and data analysis, artificial intelligence is driving, literally and figuratively, much of what we see and do, as well as much of what goes on in the background — whether we realize it or not. In its recently released draft report on trust and AI, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) put it this way: “No longer are we asking automation to do human tasks, we are asking it to do tasks that we can’t.” But like with any newfangled technology, the capability is one thing… trusting the results is something else.

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