As an end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) funding looms, a congressional briefing was held to discuss what an end to the program could mean and its importance for achieving digital equity. Estimates from the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation predict th
Residents of a St. Landry Parish (LA) town say they were recently left without internet for five days while getting no answers from the service provider after a line was inadvertently cut. On July 11, some Sunset residents noticed they weren't receiving emails and web pages refused to load. Residents took to Facebook to find out that all Brightspeed customers in their community were without internet. Customers were not notified about the outage, several residents said, and calls to Brightspeed’s customer service yielded little in the way of information.
Michigan received a $1.55 billion allocation through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program to be used to ensure the universal availability of high-speed internet throughout the state and support digital inclusion efforts. There are many activities that need to happen before the BEAD funds can be put to work. The first step, is the creation of the BEAD Five-Year Action Plan. The Michigan High-Speed Internet (MIHI) Office has engaged with and listened to hundreds of stakeholders from every corner of the state to draft its five-year action plan.
Land O'Lakes (yes, the butter company) is bridging the digital divide in the rural US. During the height of COVID, Land O’Lakes expedited its budding plans to help close the broadband access gap in rural America, said Vice President of rural services Tina May. As a cooperative owned by around 1,700 farmers, Land O’Lakes is situated in over 10,000 rural communities in the US, touching about half of the harvested acres in the country. In 2020 Land O’Lakes collaborated with local partners in rural, low-access areas to set up free Wi-Fi in parking lots.
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