Fiber For Our Future (part 1)

The COVID-19 era has exposed several weaknesses in American infrastructure and exacerbated the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than the digital divide: access to high speed internet. While much of the country was able to work and learn from home, for too many communities this was simply not an option due to poor or non-existent broadband access. In today’s show, Ernesto Omar Falcon from the EFF explains the political and economic reasons we got into this mess. Ernesto Falcon is Senior Legislative Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation with a primary focus on intellectual property, open Internet issues, broadband access, and competition policy. He represents EFF’s advocacy, on behalf of its members and all consumers, for a free and open Internet before state legislatures and Congress. Ernesto’s work includes pushing the state of California to pass the strongest net neutrality law in the country in response to federal repeal efforts, as well as leading EFF’s research and advocacy to promote universally available, affordable, and competitive fiber broadband networks. Further Info: Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/ Why cable companies hate California’s SB1130 bill: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/why-cable-companies-oppose-californias-universal-fiber-effort-sb-1130