INCOMPAS, the internet and competitive networks association, filed comments Spet 18 at the Federal Communications Commission in conjunction with its 16th Broadband Deployment Report Notice of Inquiry (706 Comments). INCOMPAS, which has long fought to raise the current internet speed benchmarks from 25 Mbps to 1 Gigabit, says COVID has been a wake-up call to all Americans who are dependent on faster, more affordable internet for school, healthcare and working from home. “With 5G well on the way, 1 Gbps represents a sensible standard and it is time for the Commission to adopt a future-proof definition of broadband for our nation.” In terms of wireless broadband, INCOMPAS stresses what all consumers know: mobile options are simply not an adequate solution to fixed broadband connections, especially in an age of rapidly increasing bandwidth needs, multiple connected devices in our homes and businesses need to deliver robust bandwidth, privacy, and data security. INCOMPAS notes the digital divide continues to be a pressing and punishing issue for far too many Americans living in both urban and rural communities. Helping to prevent barriers to competition at the local level – including bogus duplicative taxes and fees as well as denying new builders access to poles and infrastructure are critical steps the FCC can take to facilitate fiber networks. INCOMPAS also urges a rapid and immediate better broadband solution for the 30% of Americans currently living in apartment and condo buildings who are forced into monopoly contracts.

Montgomery County (MD) offers its low-income and special needs citizens Internet access via a 600-linear-mile fiber route as part of its Digital Equity program. In a new pilot project, the county will add onsite Wi-Fi—by way of Plume superpods—to its existing basic Internet access. Joe Webster, Montgomery County's Chief Broadband Officer, said that although the county has been providing free or low-cost Internet service to residents in need for some time, significant challenges remain beyond the demarc. If you're unfamiliar with the term, "demarc" is ISP shorthand for "point of demarcation"—the point beyond which your IT problems are your own, not the service provider's. A working partnership with a Wi-Fi mesh vendor like Plume—particularly one that, like Plume, can take the bulk of end-user support off the county's metaphorical shoulders—could make it possible to extend Internet access not only to the residences, but directly to the devices of the county residents in need.

Apjit Walia, the global head of technology strategy at Deutsche Bank, has a free market suggestion for ending the digital divide: Big technology companies should pay for millions of lower-income Americans to get what they need to go online. And not out of the goodness of their heart. In Walia’s view, it would be a smart business decision to reach new customers and repair Big Tech’s reputation. Walia penciled out a five-year plan for big tech companies to collectively spend about $15 billion on three things for millions of Black and Latino households with an annual income below $30,000: providing discounted internet service, supplying basic computers, and providing mentorship and education on technical skills.

Why would tech companies do this? Self-interest. This internet gap is an economic liability for these Americans and the country as more jobs have digital components, Walia said. It’s bad for tech companies, too. “This is about investing in a market that is going to be a large demographic group in a generation,” he said. Walia also said that by starting to tackle the digital divide, tech companies build good will among lawmakers and regulators, who are more closely watching how Big Tech uses its power.

The city of McAllen (TX) is tapping unlicensed Citizen Band Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum to provide backhaul for a citywide Wi-Fi hotspot deployment aimed at enabling students in the city to gain internet connectivity to support distance learning during COVID-19. A large percentage of students are low income and do not have high-speed broadband at home. Many of the costs of constructing the network were covered through a CARES Act grant. The new network has 1,000 CBRS access point/ hotspots, enabling many students to connect from their homes, and there are plans to add at least 5,000 more access points over the next year.

Traditionally, public Wi-Fi hotspots would have fiber backhaul, but using CBRS spectrum enabled the network to be deployed more quickly. “The city has a mandate of utility poles every 600 feet, which worked out very well for this,” said Drew Lentz of Frontera Consulting,  who helped advise McAllen on the CBRS deployment. “We were not able to get on all of them, but in some of the neighborhoods, there’s an access point as close as 600 feet from each other.”

Facebook has said it will take aggressive and exceptional measures to “restrict the circulation of content” on its platform if Nov’s presidential election descends into chaos or violent civic unrest. Nick Clegg, the company’s head of global affairs, said it had drawn up plans for how to handle a range of outcomes, including widespread civic unrest or “the political dilemmas” of having in-person votes counted more rapidly than mail-in ballots, which will play a larger role in this election due to the coronavirus pandemic. “There are some break-glass options available to us if there really is an extremely chaotic and, worse still, violent set of circumstances,” Clegg said, though he stopped short of elaborating further on what measures were on the table.

The lack of broadband internet access in West Virginia is a microcosm of a global issue. Almost half of the world’s population lacks access to the internet, but many people are unaware of the extent of the digital divide. At the Internet Society, we work with local communities in remote, underserved and indigenous areas around the world to extend internet access using low-cost wireless technologies and equipment. These “community networks” are built by and for locals and have connected communities in such varied places as the heart of Baltimore and indigenous communities in Canada and Hawaii by working with on-the-ground experts, advocates, engineers and service providers. Community Networks can serve as a viable solution for expanding internet access in the US and around the world. Innovative approaches and working with communities to identify and solve their own access needs are needed if we want to ensure that the internet is available to everyone.

[Katie Watson Jordan is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Internet Society]