Reads of the Week: Internet Industry Competition, Afghan Translators, and Cryptocurrency in the Art World
Each week, we’ll be featuring opinion pieces from the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. Do you dream of having bylines like these? Learn more about how the Writing Fellows Program can help boost your writing career!
FCC Must Promote Competition Between 5G & Satellite-based Internet by Ryan Nabil (Summer 2016) in RealClearPolicy
As the United States government seeks to expand broadband access for Americans, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should allow competition between terrestrial 5G broadband and fixed-satellite internet providers. Currently, the FCC is reviewing its licensing rules of the 12 GHz spectrum — which has significant potential for improving America’s internet infrastructure. If the science suggests potential, the FCC should work with existing spectrum licensees to allow both 5G and satellite companies to share the 12 GHz band.
The Biden Administration’s American Jobs Plan signals a renewed interest in expanding internet access. While subsidies for low-income Americans might increase broadband access in the short term, there is no alternative to competition for reducing subscription costs. To increase competition, the FCC needs to expand the available spectrum for 5G internet, which will allow greater competition between 5G broadband and fixed-satellite internet providers…
Biden must not abandon Afghan interpreters by Beth Bailey (Fall 2018) in the Washington Examiner
To ensure the United States “remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution,” on Jan. 20, the Biden administration committed that “hardworking [noncitizens] who enrich our communities every day and who have lived [in the U.S.] for years” would have “an opportunity to earn citizenship.”
Unfortunately, the administration has shown far less fervor toward granting safe haven or the path to citizenship they were offered to those who incurred substantial risk at our behest during nearly 20 years of overseas missions in Iraq and Afghanistan…
The $70 Million JPEG by Carolyn Stewart (Spring 2021) in American Purpose
There’s a certain phrase that is guaranteed to make an arts professional shake her head: My five-year old could do that. The art-world insider, upon hearing this, will think to herself, Pity the philistine. The guilty party, perhaps an uncle from flyover country, just doesn’t have the intellectual sensitivity to understand the art’s message.
Such condescension makes the events of March 10—when the sale of an artwork by computer illustrator Mike Winkelmann turned the art world’s sensibilities on its head—all the more interesting. When the hammer came down at Christie’s, the outcry from the art world was fast, furious, and nearly unanimous: But that’s not art…