Digital Divide

The Federal Communications Commission is committing $1,203,107,496.88 for 3,040 schools, 260 libraries, and 24 consortia that applied for support from the $7.17 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund Program. This first wave of funding commitments will provide students, school staff and library patrons in all 50 states and Guam, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia access to the devices and broadband connectivity they need to support their off-campus education needs.

Although most of the nation’s rural counties lost population from 2010 to 2020, new Census data shows that rural counties with better broadband access tended to do better with population change than counties that lacked access. As more residents had access to broadband as defined by the Federal Communications Commission in 2011, the county population increased nine years later. Most counties did improve their broadband situation as the 2010s continued. Broadband access grew as the decade progressed for both kinds of counties – those that lost population and those that gained.  But the impor

Ajit Pai led the Federal Communications Commission as chairman during the Trump administration, after earlier serving as a commissioner during the Obama administration and as a member of the agency’s staff. Trained as a lawyer, in April 2021 he became a partner with Searchlight Capital Partners, where he helps guide the private-equity firm’s digital infrastructure investments. According to Mr. Pai, private capital can play a vital role in providing broadband internet access to the many areas of the US that still have slow service or none at all.

The US Department of the Treasury released its long-awaited guidance for how states, territories, freely associated states, and Tribal governments can spend the $10 billion allocated in Section 604 of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for Capital Projects.

In the first-of-its-kind collaboration, nationally-recognized researchers from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, in partnership with the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) and with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts, will identify effective and sustainable strategies for bringing affordable Internet to all Americans.

The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) calls on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and public agencies to begin advertising and increase awareness programs to reach the nation’s neediest residents.  According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), only 1 in 12 eligible households, or 5.7 million households nationally, have enrolled in the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) as of September 19.  In a separate analysis by CETF, based on FCC enrollment data, 35 percent of 2 million eligible California households have enrolled for a total of nearly 706,000 households.  The analysi

Facebook is partnering with Appalachian Power, a utility that serves the southeastern region of the US, and Virginia-based internet service provider GigaBeam Networks to bring fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and wireless internet service to approximately 6,000 unserved households in Grayson County (VA). In Virginia, Facebook is building new long-haul fiber routes that will connect its Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina data centers.

T-Mobile unveiled plans to expand into rural markets with 5G for mobile and home internet service. The company no longer comes from the position of being a scrappy upstart, or the fourth-largest national carrier. It’s now the second-largest operator in the US, and is leveraging its acquisition of Sprint to set its sights on smaller and rural markets as part of its expansion.

For the past two decades, community-based providers – that is, thousands of upstart internet service providers – have crisscrossed America, delivering internet access services with adeptness and skill. Using a potent combination of wireless spectrum and fiber, they deliver fixed connectivity to distant rural and hard to serve urban environments. In short, they’re small innovators and entrepreneurs offering needed choice for communities that have been effectively abandoned by legacy phone and cable providers.

NCTA - The Internet & Television Association examined data pulled from FCC and Census Bureau reports to determine where cable's broadband networks have been deployed in urban centers. The findings from this report, "Building a Gigabit Nation: An Analysis of Cable's Superfast Networks in Urban Communities," indicate that cable broadband providers have long been committed to and are continually expanding, deploying, and upgrading their networks in all communities, regardless of income or race.