On this week’s episode, Katie McAuliffe joins to discuss broadband expansion efforts in the U.S., including how new 5G technologies offer more choices for personal use. We also delve into the implications of new tech regulations aimed at stopping tech censorship.
Katie McAuliffe is Director of Federal Policy at Americans for Tax Reform and Executive Director of Digital Liberty. Her research and advocacy efforts focus on telecom and technology issues, such as net neutrality, privacy, competition, internet taxes, future of work, broadband, tech/telecom reform, etc. Her commentary has been published in The Hill, U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, Townhall, Houston Chronicle, FlashReport, and The Daily Caller. In addition to appearing on One America News Network, Reel News on the Blaze TV Network, and Huffington Post Live, she frequently speaks on panels in DC and at conferences around the United States.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
Welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg. And on today’s episode, we focus on broadband expansion efforts in the United States, including how new 5g technology offers more choices for personal use. We’ll also delve into the implications of new tech regulations aimed at stopping tech censorship.
Joining us to discuss all of this is Katie McAuliffe. Katie McAuliffe is director of federal policy at Americans for Tax Reform and executive director of Digital Liberty. Her research and advocacy efforts focus on telecom and technology issues such as net neutrality, privacy competition, internet taxes, future of work broadband, and more. Her commentary has been published in the Hill, US News and World Report, Forbes, and Townhall.com. In addition to appearing on One America News Network and Real News on the Blaze TV network, she frequently speaks on panels in DC and at conferences around the US. Katie, it is such a pleasure to have you on She Thinks today.
Katie McAuliffe:
Thanks so much for having me.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I think you work in such a fascinating area, the tech area. You mentioned net neutrality in your bio, but also this important aspect of broadband. There is a lot of discussion about broadband. I think COVID has brought up even more conversations and so many people were working and going to school from their homes. The question of whether or not rural America has the same access as people who live in cities. So this has become an important conversation. Where are we with broadband expansion? And what has the Biden administration proposed?
Katie McAuliffe:
Yeah, broadband expansion is a huge topic. Closing the digital divide, making sure everyone has access, and really what’s the best way to do that. You know, the Biden administration came out with a plan of a hundred billion dollars. That’s actually been negotiated down to about 65 billion because if you look at a lot of the money that already came through during the Trump administration, we’re getting close to like very high numbers. There’s an NTIA program out right now dispersing a couple hundred million. There are a few other programs in the work. The FCC is already pushing out rural development on broadband. We’ve got a few other programs that work with getting students who don’t have connections. There’s already money being pushed out for that. And that all started in May. We’ve also got an emergency broadband benefits, which is a voucher program, which is very interesting because that works more along the lines of folks who’ve already shown that they’re in need of assistance, like something like SNAP, and there’s already been 1 million households to have applied for that and who are eligible to receive that broadband benefit.
And one of the things we’re going to end up looking at going forward is how do we want to help people access the internet? Is it best to give people some kind of voucher program where they can decide what service they want? Do they want wired line? Do they want wireless, do they want satellite, what kind of broadband serves them best? Or should it be directed by the government that they have networks run by their local government or a specific type of broadband. And that’s really what the debate’s about right now.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so it’s almost thinking about broadband as a utility like you would have for electricity. For example, do you think that broadband should be regulated as a utility?
Katie McAuliffe:
Oh, no, that’s a definite no. So when I was talking about broadband as a utility is actually what net neutrality turned into. And the real problem with that is that you get into rate regulation and government deciding what the cost of broadband should be. And we deal with that in electricity. We haven’t seen any kind of innovation in the electrical grid, but we’ve seen so much innovation in broadband. And I was listening to an interesting story through the Wall Street Journal.
And they were talking about how Germany, even though you think of them as being very forward moving, because of those net neutrality, utility style regulations that were put in place in 2015 in the European union, Germany’s provider, Deutsche Telekom haven’t wanted to invest in their networks. So they actually have very poor connectivity even in Berlin. And so they are looking at putting subsidies out in Germany for leapfrogging fiber and actually going to satellite, going to 5g and giving people the option to use those instead of fiber, because they think they miss the boat on fiber because of those regulations that kept their networks from investing. Meanwhile in the US, we’ve been investing nearly $80 billion a year because we don’t have those utility style regulations on our network.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so for those who live in rural areas and say, broadband, I still have access to it in my area. How quickly are you seeing internet companies try to put out the infrastructure that’s needed to be able to carry fast access to the internet?
Katie McAuliffe:
It takes a lot of time to do that. And it really depends on the technology. And that’s one of the important things. When the Biden plan came out, they said they wanted symmetrical speeds of a hundred upload, a hundred download. And what that really means is that it has to be fiber, but when you’re dealing with rural areas, extreme remote areas, areas in very mountainous regions. There are other technologies that they might not be 100 up, 100 down, but maybe they can do 100 down and 20 up. So 20 upload 100 download, but they’re not fiber.
So that could be something like a fixed wireless, and a lot of rural areas use fixed wireless connections. The WISP association has been doing a lot of work to raise awareness of how those small providers have been really connecting rural America. Another thing to look at a satellite broadband with the launch of Starlink and we’re seeing Project HyPER come on line. Those are offering very high speeds, speeds that we really haven’t seen before for satellite. And those might be a lot better options for rural areas.
Beverly Hallberg:
And so what should people think about when they hear the Biden administration propose a massive infrastructure bill that of course includes broadband technology and trying to increase access, especially in rural areas. Is the moral of the story that enough federal funding has already gone to this, and we need to let the companies compete with each other. Is that the moral of the story?
Katie McAuliffe:
I think the moral of the story is that there does need to be … Government [inaudible 00:06:55] in the free market can’t solve the problem, and we do have a digital divide and that’s agreed upon. So what is the most efficient way to do this? And the most efficient way is choice, and allowing Americans to choose what services is best for them. So is it 5g? Would a mobile connection be the best thing? Would a satellite connection be the best thing? Would a wireless, a fixed wireless network, would that be the right thing, just getting a jet pack so that you can connect to 5g from your home. A lot of folks do that for international travel.
There are lots of options out there and requiring fiber might not be the most efficient or the fastest one. And it looks like we’re getting some agreement in the Senate to talk about what really means an unserved area to really focus on those FCC broadband maps, that show what areas are completely unserved. And those bills are coming from Cornyn and Manchin and Collins and Rosen in the Senate. And those do show some promise of bipartisan agreement.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I want to talk a little bit about 5g technology, which you just mentioned there. There was a lot of movement in the FCC under the Trump administration on trying to push out their 5g technology. Are you finding that a lot of people are opting for that and that we are seeing the expansion of that being productive and successful for a lot of people who use it.
Katie McAuliffe:
Yeah, 5g is really going to revolutionize the way everything is done. This is really how we … The mobile communication, so when I say fixed wireless, I’m talking about a wireless station that is just for your home. But when we talk about mobile, we’re talking about being in our cars, moving at very high speeds, using our cell phones and being able to connect to the internet and do all kinds of things.
We can do that now, but the level that that’s going to change to, and a lot of this is because under the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission led by Ajit Pai, there were multiple spectrum options, and that got a lot more spectrum into the hands of wireless carriers and also unlicensed spectrum. Unlicensed spectrum would be things like wifi and Bluetooth. But getting that spectrum out to industry so that they can develop it and deploy those networks, we’re going to see big changes in the next couple of years.
Beverly Hallberg:
And one of the less focused on stories during COVID to me has been how the internet didn’t crash during COVID and that people for the most part were able to work from home, do school from home. Of course, there’s some exceptions to that. Were you concerned when we entered COVID that there may not be enough bandwidth for the entire country working in this way?
Katie McAuliffe:
That was a question right at the very beginning, are we really going to be able to do everything from home? Are we going to be able to flip like this, because retail or home internet is very different from enterprise or at the office internet. So looking at those kinds of bandwidth and we found it worked really well. And that’s because the infrastructure here, where there’s been tons of investment by private companies, like I said, between $74 and $80 billion per year into these networks, so that when we all shifted to home broadband, they were able to update their protocols.
They were able to absorb that increase in what I was talking before about upload speeds. So things like video. The thing that we talked about with that has the most bandwidth uptake from home and upload speeds is video games. But we all moved to video conferencing, schooling at home and really, we found that what was out here, what most Americans had in terms of connectivity to the internet via wifi, via 5g and via wired connections was definitely adequate.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I want to change topics just a little bit, still staying on big tech, but talking about the area that a lot of people are concerned about. And that is the power of big tech, the censorship of big tech and the efforts by many people to try to break up the big tech bandwagon. Antitrust legislation is used to do that. First of all, to start this part of the conversation, can you give us an overview of what the antitrust debate really is about? What does it mean when we refer to antitrust?
Katie McAuliffe:
Yeah, so this debate is really interesting and complicated, but when we talk about antitrust, one of the most important things to remember is up until the seventies, antitrust was very politicized. And it was basically like companies that whoever was in power at the time, whichever administration was in power at the time, whoever they favored really got the most power, they had the most influence and they could kind of skirt the law.
After the seventies, and Judge Robert Bork brought forward the idea of the consumer welfare standard. And instead of looking at what’s good for companies, what’s the best for companies and their political allies. We look at is the consumer better off by whatever it is these companies are doing. And that’s what’s really important to remember. That’s what our law does right now. So what I would say is this feeling towards quote unquote, big tech, is that we do have antitrust laws in place, and a lot of that stuff is playing out right now.
There are cases from the states and from the federal government, from the Department of Justice, various attorneys general, they’re looking into the tech companies to see whether they violated antitrust law and whether they violated the consumer welfare standard. And one of the things that I tell people a lot is just because we’re having this issue and these companies are being investigated doesn’t mean the law has to change.
What it does mean is that the law’s working. So when we catch somebody doing a bad thing, it means that the law caught them doing a bad thing. So what we need to do right now is let this stuff play out because a lot of this is being used as a way to change antitrust law, to give who’s ever in power more control over their corporate allies, if you will.
Beverly Hallberg:
And before we continue the conversation, I’d like to take a moment to highlight IWS Champion Women Profile Series, which focuses on women across the country and world that are accomplishing amazing things. The media too often ignores their stories, but we don’t. We celebrate them and bring their stories directly to you. Our current profile is Representative Claudia Tenney from New York’s 22nd congressional district. To check out her story, do go to iwf.org to see why she’s this week’s champion woman.
I want to pick up back up on what you just said, Katie, on the power angle. What I find is interesting about this whole discussion of what we should do about big tech is that both liberals and conservatives seem to want, or at least a good chunk of them want to have more government intervention. Now for different purposes, but they have an invested interest, it seems, and government providing more regulations. What do you say to adding more government into this discussion, adding more regulations? You just mentioned that when it comes to antitrust laws, it means the laws are working when we are looking into companies to see if they broke that law. What do you make though, of this push to have government regulate the companies more?
Katie McAuliffe:
It’s a tough space because what I really think should be happening is I think we should be examining our privacy laws. And I think if we looked at our privacy laws and we looked at how data was being used and we gave individuals more power over our data, gave individuals more data ownership within the market, because right now, when you think about it, you go online. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. If the product is free, well then you’re the product.
So I think if we had that market power, if individuals had more market power in the system, then we wouldn’t need all this talk about government intervention. So that’s actually where I think government should be focusing is where is the market failure? And I think the market failure is that users, individuals using the internet and products on the internet don’t have any power over the use of their data.
I think if we actually looked at that, if we looked at privacy, we might be getting at the real problem. But what we’re looking at again is antitrust because, if you change the law, there’s a little bit of regulatory capture. That’s good for companies that are already big. They’re like, yeah, well, this regulation I can deal with, smaller company can’t. Some of that goes on, there’s also some use on the political side to be able to capture these companies and make them your allies or not.
Beverly Hallberg:
And one of the thoughts I’ve had on this and you can correct me if I’m wrong, is one of the important areas is to make sure that there can still be competition in big tech, that there is still a space for startups to pop up so that people have options about what they use, because that is a great way to make big companies customer-focused, instead of just focused on the data, for example, that they can sell. Do we have a system right now where startups are still able to be viable in this marketplace?
Katie McAuliffe:
Yeah, startups are viable. And one of the options that startups look at is whether they can be bought out or not. And that is a positive part of the market. And that’s not just in the tech industry, that’s across all industries. A lot of startups look at what is going to be their exit strategy. Are they going to go for the initial public offering, are they going to stay private or are they going to sell. Those are a few of the options that are out there and the more strategies they have to become profitable and successful, the more avenues that are available to them, the better.
So if we limit that ability of startups to perhaps be acquired, if we limit that ability too much, then we cut off the ability of our economy to keep churning out some of these innovative and new technologies. And I think one of the things that we have, and that we look at when we go through merger review is whether this merger is going to be good or not for consumers, and not is it going to be good for competitors, but is it going to be good for the people who use the products? And I think that’s really the importance of the emphasis there.
Beverly Hallberg:
Final question for you. What would you say to people listening to this podcast that are concerned about their privacy, whether that’s through Amazon, whether that’s through Facebook, whether that’s through Google searches, we all know that whatever we search for online, we get ads for it and that pops up. And that’s somewhat to be expected, but how can people protect themselves? And for example, have you taken any personal steps to try to protect your privacy online?
Katie McAuliffe:
So as far as privacy online goes, quite frankly, Facebook has done a pretty good job of offering privacy checkups. I’m going to go ahead and admit that I don’t really do it myself. I do update my privacy standards for the different things that I use to make it not public and not publicly accessible. But I do understand that as an exchange for the products that I’m using on the internet, so I’m using Facebook, therefore they’re getting my data while I’m using Facebook. That’s kind of an equal exchange, sort of like you go to a sandwich counter and you give them money and you get a sandwich. It’s not money, it’s data and using data in the exchange. So I look at that as kind of something that I’ve accepted in the daily routine.
There are plenty of things that you can do. You can change your browser to something like DuckDuckGo, you can change your email client to something like Proton Mail that are very privacy sensitive. Those are options, but they don’t really … Data greases the wheels of the internet. And that’s why we look at a Chinese internet, a Russian internet, a Brazilian internet, a US internet as being a problem. When we talk about kind of different internet around the world, are we talking about different states trying to regulate the internet, like California is trying to regulate the internet. It sort of breaks it up.
And data is what makes the internet really work in that exchange of information. So we do need to think about ways to protect ourselves, but also understand that there’s kind of this give and take. I still think the best place for government to work is to look at some way to give us control over our data, to give us that privacy in some kind of more direct exchange, but we’ll wait to see how that actually plays out.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah, there’s so much that is evolving in big tech and in the tech sphere. And we are very thankful that people that are as smart as you are working on it. Katie McAuliffe with ATR, we thank you so much for joining us and coming on She Thinks today.
Katie McAuliffe:
Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Beverly Hallberg:
And thank you for joining us. Before you go, Independent Women’s Forum does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you. An investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and wellbeing for all Americans.
Please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org/donate. That is iwf.org/donate. And last, if you enjoyed this episode of She Thinks, do leave us a rating or review on iTunes, it does help. And we’d love it if you share this episode and let your friends know where they can find more She Thinks episodes. From all of us here at Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.