Adoption

In the absence of the Affordable Connectivity Program, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) encourages ISPs to offer a low-cost plan and/or a discount to qualifying households. NDIA is creating a good-better-best rating system to evaluate the affordability and quality of low-cost internet plans. The rating system will be featured on the Free & Low-Cost Internet Plans webpage to help consumers understand their low-cost options.

The Minnesota Department of Employment of and Economic Development (DEED) is celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Office of Broadband Development (OBD) and the ten grant rounds that followed.

One of Net Inclusion’s cherished traditions is presenting the recipients of the prestigious Charles Benton Digital Equity Award. Named for Charles Benton, the founder of Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) created the awards to recognize leadership and dedication in advancing digital equity. Since NDIA’s creation of the award in 2016, we have recognized 15 Digital Equity Champions, and we are thrilled to welcome this year’s remarkable awardees:

The United States has lately gotten serious about broadband expansion, with the federal government spending tens of billions of dollars to deploy services all over the country — especially in rural areas, where coverage is sparse. But how widely connectivity is available matters little if consumers can’t afford it.

Thanks to our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 46,000 new projects have been announced across your communities – modernizing our roads and bridges, ports and airports, and public transit systems. ... Providing affordable high speed internet for every American no matter where you live. 

When former librarian and author Jean Armour Polly first introduced the idea of having computers in libraries in the early 1980s, she was met with pushback. "People scoffed and said, 'Why would you go to a library to use a computer?'" she said. Even when the internet rolled around, many librarians felt they were supposed to be the sole gatekeepers of knowledge and information. "But I just knew it would be a wonderful thing. You know, school kids could use [computers] in schools, but what about the lifelong learners? And adults and seniors?" Polly said.

Leichtman Research Group (LRG) found that the largest cable and wireline phone providers and fixed wireless services in the US—representing about 96 percent of the market—acquired about 3,520,000 net additional broadband Internet subscribers in 2023, similar to a pro forma gain of 3,530,000 subscribers in 2022. These top broadband providers account for about 114.7 million subscribers, with top cable companies having 76.1 million broadband subscribers, top wireline phone companies having over 30.7 million subscribers, and top fixed wireless services having over 7.8 million subscribers.

Best practice methods for assessing affordability developed and endorsed by academic and government affordability experts can provide much greater precision in assessing need thereby enabling more informed and more targeted digital equity interventions. However, recent experience in Washington state has revealed that few of us in the digital equity realm are yet comfortable applying these methods, or, indeed, are even aware of them.

With the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) on the brink of exhausting its funding and congressional action to secure its future still uncertain, it’s time we have the hard conversation about sunk costs. For ACP, that includes:

We stand at a crossroad in the landscape of communications and digital equity. As we navigate the complexities of the 21st century, one thing has remained unchanged—our commitment to ensuring that every American, regardless of where you live or how much you make, has access to reliable, affordable, and high-speed Internet.