As more and more essential services and activities move online, people have less and less of a choice about whether or not to participate in the digital world. Yet expanded internet use can bring with it increased risk.
Publications
Benton publications explore the intersection of broadband and the public interest
09/04/2024
The historic levels of funding made available through the bipartisan Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program will generate historic levels of construction—and this will put enormous pressure on local governments.
07/24/2024
Findings from a representative sample of 2,535 households whose annual incomes are $50,000 or less.
06/04/2024
This report highlights how the early collective efforts of residents in east-central Vermont helped make Communications Union Districts (CUDs) a statewide, scalable strategy for ensuring locally driven connectivity today.
05/08/2024
Marjorie and Charles Benton Opportunity Fund Fellow Dr. Pierrette Renée Dagg examines the role community champions in community connectivity solutions and the factors that allow these leaders to succeed.
04/05/2024
As a Marjorie & Charles Benton Opportunity Fund Fellow, EveryoneOn CEO Norma E. Fernandez examined the digital adoption journeys of low-income Black/African American and Latina women.
03/11/2024
This exploration finds that every dollar of ACP subsidy returns nearly two dollars in impacts to those using the program.
03/06/2024
Own Your Internet: How to Build a Public Broadband Network
12/20/2023
Affordability, Adoption, Equity, and the United States’s Universal Broadband Goals
12/12/2023
This report follows the journey of five rural counties in Illinois (Edgar, Hancock, McLean, Ogle, and Schuyler) that enrolled in the Broadband Breakthrough community engagement and broadband planning program and used the resources and open-source tools the program provides to pursue a better broadband future. The goal of Broadband Breakthrough and this report is to help rural farming communitie
12/12/2023
This white paper examines wireless technologies capable of providing broadband connectivity with an emphasis on rural farming communities.
08/01/2023
All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico are currently working on digital equity plans. One key component of the plans is the development of states’ visions for digital equity. These efforts are the initial state-level planning and envisioning at this scale and scope.
11/29/2022
American Community Survey data show substantial increases in household wireline broadband adoption
11/07/2022
For community leaders striving for digital equity, this guidebook will help communities evaluate and meet specific connectivity needs. We chart three pathways—Access, Adoption, and Use—that together offer a comprehensive approach to guide communities’ digital equity planning and provide structure for implementing effective solutions.
07/12/2022
In November 2021, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Black Brilliance Research Project (BBR), and Community Informatics Lab at Simmons University launched the six-city Digital Equity Action Research (DEAR) Fellowship.
06/22/2022
As state and local governments and their partners plan to invest billions of dollars in federal funding to build broadband infrastructure, choosing the best technology will have significant long-term implications.
06/15/2022
Accelerate: A Community Broadband Planning Program, a guidebook for local leaders who want to ensure their communities are not left behind.
02/22/2022
The Affordable Connectivity Program represents an inflection point for Lifeline and universal service.
11/30/2021
It is the era of the broadband public-private partnership.
11/01/2021
The goal of Project OVERCOME is to select, launch, and oversee multiple proof-of-concept broadband solutions to underserved communities.
10/04/2021
A collaboration between the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the United Soybean Board
07/26/2021
One might think this is the moment for community broadband networks. The truth is, locally-directed networks have been serving their communities for a long, long time.
06/16/2021
The best practices and commonalities among many of the best state rural broadband funding program
12/01/2020
Residential and small-business customers have too few options for fixed, robust broadband service, what we refer to as “High-Performance Broadband.” Fixing our deployment and competition problems requires the construction of new broadband networks. In other words, we need more competition, and we need more broadband deployment.
11/18/2020
How are digital inclusion coalitions across the country responding to the triple challenges of the pandemic, growing economic inequality, and racial injustice facing poor communities and communities of color across the country without access to broadband internet at home?
10/14/2020
Private-sector investment alone is not closing our digital gaps. The Public Infrastructure/Private Service model offers a promising solution that is precisely targeted to the areas with greatest broadband gaps, frequently those with lower income levels and lower population densities.
08/03/2020
“Middle-skill” jobs make up a large portion of the market, has positions to fill, but suffers from a dearth of trained workers—especially when it comes to digital skills.
06/08/2020
Lessons, cases, and resources developed by local technology champions and planners
This publication is a part of a discussion on how public policy can close the digital divide and extend digital opportunity everywhere.
04/08/2019
Benton and EducationSuperHighway offer tangible steps that the Federal Communications Commission should take to instruct the Universal Service Administrative Company on how best to speed the approval of E-Rate projects that meet the legal requirements of the Telecommunications Act.
10/29/2018
There are well-paying job opportunities for those on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum for so-called middle-skill jobs. These are jobs that generally do not require a college degree and pay a living wage. Roughly half of all job openings in the United States fall into the middle-skill category and most (82%) of them require digital skills – and wages are better as a result.
09/26/2018
This report, part history and part strategy playbook, examines the tactics and policy priorities of former-Commissioner Michael J. Copps during his 10 years at the FCC. An analysis of Commissioner Copps’s tenure, his political strategies, and his legacy is a timely endeavor, both for its historical importance and for its contemporary relevance.
06/20/2018
Combining state-of-the-technologies with traditional and new media, Benton's Campaigns for Kids in the mid-1990's reinvented fulfillment for PSA campaigns in the digital age by replacing 800 phone numbers and brochures with multimedia websites to provide information and resources for action.
09/08/2017
Municipalities across the country are increasingly using technology to ensure government is accessible and responsive to citizens, while simultaneously creating forward-looking programs to increase internet access so more residents can experience the benefits of connectivity.
05/08/2017
This report describes the challenges facing community-based organizations and other key stakeholders in using outcomes-based evaluation to measure the success of their digital inclusion programs and offers recommendations toward addressing these shared barriers.
05/01/2017
Local governments increasingly see before them exciting new opportunities to develop next-generation broadband in their communities—and to reap the many benefits that broadband will deliver to their residents and businesses. The goal of most of these communities is to get optical fiber connections to every home and business.
09/08/2016
This is a handbook for city officials seeking the affordable, abundant bandwidth their communities will need to thrive in the decades ahead.
07/13/2016
The future belongs to those with access to high-speed broadband. In the 21st century, anyone seeking to launch a business, exchange medical records, conduct a research project, obtain a college degree, engage in community activities, or create his or her own path will need both a high-capacity Internet connection and the digital skills necessary to navigate the online world.
01/11/2016
With library systems increasingly prioritizing equitable access to the Internet and digital literacy training, the role 21st-century libraries serve in promoting digital inclusion has become more prominent.
01/01/2016
This report presents findings from a national study of digital inclusion organizations that help low-income individuals and families adopt high-speed Internet service. The study looked at eight digital inclusion organizations across the United States that are working at the important intersection between making high-speed Internet available and strengthening digital skills—two essential and interrelated components of digital inclusion, which is focused on increasing digital access, skills, and relevant content.
09/08/2013
In order to guarantee that everyone will have access to 21st century communications, policymakers will need to take pragmatic steps to understand the opportunities and barriers; ensure that everyone can access benefits; and make certain that our newest technologies continue to support some of our oldest values.