In a letter to Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) led a bipartisan group of 30 senators in calling for the expansion of access to telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic to be made permanent.

Gov Chris Sununu (R-NH) has announced $50 million in funding for rural broadband and $35 million for people facing housing insecurity with money from the CARES Act. He said the federal funding will also go to private institutions of higher learning, and homeless shelters. The goal of the broadband program, Gov Sununu said, is to connect “the last mile,” the homes and businesses that still don’t have access to reliable Internet. He also said that schools, libraries and other places where Internet use is essential will be included.

The pandemic has highlighted the need for county and city governments to provide their workers and K-12 students with internet connections and related technology, especially laptops, experts said during a June 4 CompTIA webinar titled “Stretching the Limits: Broadband Capacity and Availability in a Crisis.” Albemarle County (VA) a largely rural area that is home to the University of Virginia, partnered with its public schools division to provide surplus laptops to social service workers who didn’t have them.

Having high-speed access, a functional computer and the requisite tech skills are imperative if we expect equitable learning outcomes. The issue is equally problematic for the worker who cannot work at home because her only device is a phone or the faith leader who cannot reach his congregation because he does not have the tech skills required to do so. There are several reasons for lack of home access. The greatest, by far, is cost.

The government must urgently ensure that more than 1 million children have reliable internet access at home or risk irreparable harm to their education, a cross-party group of Members Parliament and former ministers has said.

Educators told the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pension (HELP) Committee on June 10 that access to technology is key to reopening schools in the new normal of COVID-19 and they could use some help in the form of government dollars. John King, former Education Secretary under President Barack Obama, said that before COVID-19, 79% of households had broadband versus only 66% of black households and 61% of Hispanic households.

By this letter, the Puerto Rican Telecommunications Alliance (PRTA) urgently requests the immediate attention of the Federal Communications Commission in a matter presently before Puerto Rico's House of Representatives.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai requesting that the FCC provide additional transparency on the distribution of public funds through the COVID-19 Telehealth Program, which Congress created in the CARES Act. As of June 10, the FCC has announced it has awarded more than $104 million of the total $200 million in appropriated funds through the COVID-19 Telehealth Program.

In rural communities throughout Minnesota, roughly 16 percent of households lack access to high speed internet. That means 144,000 households are missing out on the benefits that come with broadband. And that’s simply unacceptable. I’ve heard from school superintendents across our state who are partnering with small broadband providers directly in order to help their students without internet access. These are innovative partnerships that will help our kids during this difficult time.

The nonprofit has said its National Emergency Library was a public service to people unable to access libraries during the pandemic, but publishers and authors accused it of theft.