Reference

The order also provides a framework for the FCC to crack down a range of digital inequities including the disparities in the investment of services for different neighborhoods, as well as the “digital divide,” a term experts use to describe the complete lack of internet access many communities experience due to regional or socioeconomic inequality. “While the intent of the statute is to apply pressure to internet service providers in order to avert discrimination, it also eases the responsibility of states and localities who are receiving (federal infrastructure) funds to have that same responsibility,” said Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at The Brookings Institution. Meanwhile, Free Press Action, a digital advocacy group, applauded the new rules and called on the FCC to go further by reclassifying some aspects of broadband to bring about “quick action to bring back the important oversight powers the agency needs to do its job. “Whatever the FCC does in terms of discipline or punishment, I would hope that the benefit goes to the community being discriminated against in the form of more equitable deployment,” said Christopher Ali, a professor of telecommunications at Pennsylvania State University. The group also said the FCC was seeking “expansive new authority over virtually every aspect of the broadband marketplace.” “Many, if not most, long-standing, uniform business practices could be seen to have differential impacts on consumers with different income levels,” the group said.

In this context, digital rights management (DRM) technologies play a significant role by helping to control and manage access, usage, and billing for digital goods (Hess, 2005, p. 19). The first precursors of modern DRM systems can be found in the form of copy protection systems for pay television in the 1980s (Grassmuck, 2006, p. 165).

The FCC has a unique role in securing the nation's communications supply chain. In addition to the actions listed above, the FCC plays a critical role with the USF Supply Chain and as a named member of the departments and agencies the Commerce department consults with to determine risks presented to the U.S. information and communications ...