ISPs Need to Tackle Digital Inclusion

It’s clear that federal funding for digital inclusion activities is dead. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the White House killed the funding for the Digital Equity Act, and it’s looking increasingly certain that NTIA is going to kill most or all of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program non-deployment funds. These two sources of funding were going to be used to get a lot of computers and devices into the hands of people who need them and train millions of people to better use broadband. Both of these efforts were going to benefit internet service providers in a big way. Numerous studies have shown that once people buy a broadband subscription, they work hard to keep it. Broadband subscriptions are anti-recessionary, and people will ditch other expenses in their life before cancelling a broadband subscription. I think it’s in the best interest of ISPs to step into the federal funding void to help tackle this issue.