Forbes

Across the country, rural households and low-wage workers are stuck with slow or no internet while the rest of the world moves forward with high-speed broadband. Lack of broadband shuts workers out of jobs. People who live in rural areas without high-speed internet access depend on local coffee shops and other public facilities with high-speed internet to fill in the gap. Beyond work, online healthcare, education, and conveniences like online shopping work best—and sometimes only—with broadband. During the pandemic, these tasks became necessities for many.

With a $14 billion appropriation from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) has enrolled more than 14 million households in a short period of time and may be the most effective broadband benefit program to date with its direct-to-consumer model. The innovative program offers a valuable policy learning opportunity as lawmakers consider sustainable long-term funding options to continue it. Many features of the ACP reflect guidance from policy academics and researchers that supports a model that allows consumers more options.

The case for internet access as a human right remains a hotly debated subject. However, in the post-pandemic world, it’s one that is becoming increasingly skewed toward the affirmative. Data Reportal reports that 63 percent of the world uses the internet daily. When internet access is a requirement of functionality in the modern world, when does it become a human right? As the world has exited the stages of lockdowns and quarantines, the internet has remained in the spotlight.

As our daily lives increasingly depend on wireless services for everything from telemedicine to distance learning, the demand for a new wireless spectrum for 5G and next-generation Wi-Fi has exploded. The spectrum to meet that demand must come from somewhere.

Although there are many technological solutions that can positively impact the educational digital divide, the following three are particularly noteworthy.