Digital Divide

The repercussions of the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction are still being felt as waiver requests for winning bids roll in and disputes over whether or not certain bidders were qualified in the first place rage on.

Former Administrator of the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service and current Managing Member with Rural America Strategies Chad Rupe joined the Fiber Broadband Association’s Fiber for Breakfast to share how current broadband allocations are “a bridge halfway” to aiding family farms and the growing need for precision agriculture. According to Rupe, both the farmer and provider can build up rural economies and harvest profits with precision agriculture. Farmers in rural areas often do not have integrated systems and have not gained the full benefits of ever-increasing techno

With the first traunch of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds going out to counties and cities in summer 2021, many local leaders have begun to propose projects and seek input from citizens about how they should be used.

Online businesses and platform work can create the impression that the digital economy is ephemeral and placeless. But the digital economy is experienced locally, and its effects are spatial. Measuring them requires better community-level data on economic activities online. While new government data measures broadband subscriptions down to neighborhoods, existing public data do not measure how broadband is used in local communities, and whether this digital activity affects economic outcomes.

Dish Network’s Boost Mobile announced plans to acquire Gen Mobile, a Los Angeles (CA)-based prepaid mobile service provider specializing in serving “cost-conscious” consumers. Boost will be acquiring an undisclosed number of subscribers through the acquisition, but Stephen Stokols, who heads Boost and will oversee the Gen Mobile brand, said a key thing is the connection to bridging the digital divide. Dish is starting to move upmarket with Boost Mobile, but at the same time, “we don’t want to ignore the under-served market,” he said.

For America’s Latino community, education has long been the engine of generational advancement and prosperity. But the digital divide threatens to grind these gears of progress to a halt.

More than 180,000 North Carolina households are getting critical assistance in affording high-speed internet service thanks to the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) Program. With 182,473 households enrolled in the Federal Communications Commission’s initiative, North Carolina’s level of enrollment ranks sixth among the 50 states. Gov Roy Cooper (D-NC) urges Congress and the North Carolina delegation to pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to make the monthly discount permanent for eligible households.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit hard starting in 2020, residents of Fairlawn (OH) were well-prepared to work and attend school online, while people living in some of the surrounding towns struggled with slower, less reliable internet service. Fairlawn, a relatively affluent Akron suburb of about 7,500 residents, built its own fiber-based internet service called FairlawnGig in 2017.

In a two-year research project of the Rural Broadband Consortium, C Spire led a group of companies that included Nokia, Microsoft, Facebook, and others to explore the challenges of cost-effective rural broadband deployment as well as what technologies and additional business model changes might help.

A sweeping $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed by the Senate on Aug. 10 would invest $65 billion in fast and reliable broadband infrastructure, affordability, and adoption. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act also would provide hundreds of billions of dollars for roads, high-speed rail, and other projects. The Senate measure, awaiting action by the House, represents a historic moment in national broadband policy; the size and scope of the proposed investment acknowledge the challenges at hand and how critical high-speed internet access is to ensure America’s economic future.