FCC Should Focus on Mapping, Not Capping Lifeline, Starks Says
Geoffrey Starks, in his maiden industry speech as an FCC commissioner, Wednesday took on Chairman Ajit Pai on USF and other issues. Starks spoke during a Partnership for Progress on the Digital Divide event. “Lifeline is a program that I deeply believe in,” Starks said. “It’s called Lifeline for a reason.” Users need the program for a job or to connect with loved ones, he said.
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The “good news” is that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently rejected FCC tribal Lifeline support limits and procedures (see 1902010051), Starks said. Similar limits across more of the program would likely be similarly “struck down,” he said. Starks said he opposes overall caps. The four USF programs shouldn’t have to compete with each other, he said.
The FCC doesn’t know the exact number of Americans without broadband, Starks said. “We should be working on mapping, not capping,” he said. “The FCC needs to get a better handle on who has broadband, who doesn’t.”
“There is a significant digital divide,” Starks said. “Over 24 million Americans, even by the FCC’s account, still do not have access to broadband. Millions more don’t use high-speed broadband at home because they simply can’t afford it.” Broadband is “pulling us apart” when “by its nature should be connecting us,” he said: “The persistent and uneven distribution of who is connected in America is not healthy for our democracy.”
In a chat with Benton Foundation Senior Fellow Gigi Sohn, Starks said he “certainly did not agree” with the FCC’s recent draft Telecom Act 706 report (see 1905010205). “There were issues of process and then there were issues of substance.”
The U.S. is making incremental progress on broadband, but it’s not “mission accomplished,” Starks said. “We’re still eight steps behind.”
For many people of color, the smartphone is their only broadband connection, Starks said. But it’s hard to do homework or a job on mobile device, he said. “It’s hard to formulate a resume.” For many Americans, broadband is a “pocketbook issue,” he said. The FCC needs to focus on getting rates down, he said.
The digital divide will only grow as 5G launches with its “lightning fast speeds,” Starks said. “I’m all for ushering in the fifth generation of wireless technology but I am deeply concerned about the far too many communities that simply have no G's.” Starks worries about a world “in which those with much get even more and everyone else gets left behind.”
Whether the divide is addressed will decide whether some communities succeed, fail or even disappear, Starks said. “Few new businesses will move to a town that doesn’t have high-speed broadband.”
Starks also warned of the dangers of facial recognition technology, which has been of growing concern including in Congress (see 1905220058). Other new technologies like artificial intelligence come with biases built in, he said. “We need to look at that. If we don’t get them right, new digital divides will propagate and we don’t know what those consequences will be,” he said. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development issued some AI principles in an initial document Wednesday backed by all OECD members including the U.S. (see 1905220068).
Many traditional jobs have disappeared, said Byte Back Executive Director Elizabeth Lindsey, who also spoke Wednesday. “The individuals who were in those jobs are the people who have always been left behind in our economy and in our society,” Lindsey said. The digital divide is about opportunity, she said: “Without digital skills, people can’t even apply for a job anymore.’”