The percentage of "power user" broadband subscribers consuming 1 TB or more of data per month has tripled in the U.S. during the past five years, OpenVault said Tuesday. It said 24.3% of all subscribers were power users in Q4 2024, up from 7.3% in 2019. It said average monthly total consumption was a record-high 698.2 GB in 2024, with high-volume users and continued growth in upstream consumption continuing to drive the average monthly total consumption.

Don’t dismiss tech groups’ challenge of a Florida social media law, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association urged the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida this week (Case 4:21-cv-00220). The U.S. Supreme Court in July ruled the First Amendment protects social media platforms’ ability to moderate content, sending the tech industry’s suits against Florida and Texas laws back to the lower courts (see 2407010053). In November, CCIA and NetChoice submitted an amended complaint asking the district court to permanently enjoin Florida’s social media law (see 2411040033). However, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) responded by asking the court to dismiss the complaint “for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim” (see 2411180038). NetChoice and CCIA responded Wednesday that SCOTUS eviscerated Florida’s argument that Facebook and other websites don’t engage in activity that the First Amendment protects when the platforms curate content. “With little left to say about the merits of Plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims, Florida offers a slew of new threshold objections, attacking everything from the way Plaintiffs organized their Amended Complaint to whether Plaintiffs have a cause of action to enjoin the enforcement of an unconstitutional statute. Florida’s arguments are meritless.”

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up whether the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the federal law banning TikTok unless its Chinese government-controlled owners divest, violates TikTok's First Amendment rights. SCOTUS scheduled a two-hour oral argument for Jan. 10, it said Wednesday as it granted and combined cert petitions by the company (docket 24-656) and TikTok personality Brian "The Cattle Guy" Firebaugh (24-657). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the ban earlier this month (see 2412060055).

Broadband is moving toward an "adaptive era" of networks that self-configure and predictive algorithms that anticipate events and ensure uninterrupted service, CableLabs wrote Tuesday. The necessary adaptive era infrastructure is in its early stages, but there are innovations that already incorporate adaptive elements, it said. For example, automated profile management changes detect problems in networks and shift traffic to different frequency ranges, minimizing disruptions. In addition, networks are equipped with sensors and algorithms, which detect environmental events, such as seismic activity or nearby construction, and then alert first responders or act to avoid outages, it said.

T-Mobile has started soliciting beta test users for its supplemental coverage from space service, offered in partnership with SpaceX. "T-Mobile Starlink beta is coming soon," the wireless carrier said on its website. "Register now for a limited number of openings to beta-test satellite-powered messaging." The FCC Space Bureau gave a nod in November to T-Mobile and SpaceX commencing commercial operations (see 2411260043).

The FCC broadband data task force’s sixth data collection filing window for facilities-based providers will open Jan. 2, said a public notice in docket 11-10 Monday. Providers will have until March 3 to submit their availability data as of Dec 31. “Providers who are already licensees of the Fabric and all other Fabric licensees (including state, local, and Tribal government and other third-party entities) will receive an email from CostQuest, the FCC’s Fabric contractor, providing them with links to access to the December 2024 Fabric data,” the PN said. Changes from previous versions of the broadband serviceable location fabric include “additional Broadband Serviceable Locations and corrections to addresses, unit counts, building types, land use, and geographic coordinates,” the PN said. “We encourage filers to submit their availability data as of December 31, 2024, as early as possible in the filing window,” the PN said. “Failure to timely file required data in the new BDC system may lead to enforcement action and/or penalties.”

Almost half of all U.S. teens are online "nearly constantly," with YouTube their most used and visited platform, according to Pew Research. It said that, in its survey of 1,391 sets of teens and parents conducted in September and October, roughly 90% of teens reported daily use of YouTube, 60% of TikTok plus Instagram, and 55% of Snapchat. Daily use of Facebook among teens has dropped to 32% from 71% in 2014-2015, and of X to 17% from 23% in 2022. Pew said that 73% of teens report visiting YouTube daily. A full third of teens say they're "almost constant" users YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook. It said that nearly half of teens report they're online in one way or another "almost constantly," up from 24% a decade ago, with 96% online daily.

Noting the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index data, NCTA CEO Michael Powell wrote Friday that broadband prices "continue to buck inflationary trends." Internet prices were down 1.6% in November, the fifth drop in six months, he said. Year-over-year broadband prices are down 0.7%, the biggest decrease since 2018, he said.

Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA) approach to regulating Big Tech isn't likely to be replicable in the U.S., Giovanna Massarotto, academic fellow at University of Pennsylvania's Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition, wrote Monday. Under the DMA, she noted, companies in core digital services, such as internet search and that hit specific thresholds based on size, are called gatekeepers and must face certain prohibitions and obligations. She said U.S. common law tradition favors a flexible, case-by-case approach to legal decision-making, contrary to Europe. The neoclassical economics taught at Harvard and Chicago, which sets the tone for competition enforcement, rejects the idea that competition should have an ethical component and focuses on economic analytical tools. The U.S. approach is that large companies leverage economies of scale and reduce the price of goods and services for consumers. As such, they aren't necessarily bad and don't need regulation by default, while DMA is concerned with the scope of businesses.

Government officials shouldn't secretly pressure private social media companies to silence speech, and greater transparency would help prevent such activity, Cato Institute Fellow David Inserra wrote Friday. He said Congress or the White House should require all government officials to record any oral or written request or suggestion to private actors to remove speech or deny services due to speech. OMB could collect those reports and make them publicly available, he said. That approach wouldn't punish government actors for communicating with or advising companies about potentially dangerous or false information, but it would limit unconstitutional censorship attempts, Inserra wrote.