Individuals who primarily Reside in a Rural Area

Service providers in the state of Washington are concerned about legislation pending in the state’s House of Representatives.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the availability of $20 million to deliver broadband technical assistance resources for rural communities and to support the development and expansion of broadband cooperatives. USDA is offering funding under the new Broadband Technical Assistance Program.

Years of working on deployments with varying geographic issues and operational challenges have imparted valuable lessons about timely project execution despite uncontrollable variables. Here are seven best practices and the stories behind them:

In the metropolitan hubs of the world, access to ubiquitous high-speed fiber within city limits is almost taken for granted these days. But for many people in rural areas, such access is limited. Service providers understandably often can’t provide fiber access to the last mile in rural areas because of the sheer expense of laying and maintaining fiber to each home in sparsely populated areas. This has left many people underserved for decades, relying on legacy copper networks to attempt to bridge the digital divide.

A years-long debate slowed progress in the Keystone State, but in September 2022, Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA) announced that $500 million from the American Rescue Plan Act will go to local governments to invest in infrastructure, including broadband, accelerating the Commonwealth's efforts to close the digital divide.

Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch (R-IN) and the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs announced more Hoosiers will gain access to high-speed broadband as a result of $842,865 awarded in the fifth round of the Indiana Connectivity Program (ICP).

Consolidated Communications will bring Fidium fiber internet to 22,000 rural Maine homes and businesses as part of the Connect Maine Partnership, supported by a $18.3 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). This project will bolster Consolidated’s ongoing work to build fiber-to-the-premises broadband networks to more than 70% of the Company’s service area by 2025.

Over the past year, I’ve focused on investigating why the internet connection at your house is slow and what you can do about it. Tucked deep in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed by President Joe Biden in 2021, is a short provision giving

The Aspen Institute and HP Inc. announced the selection of ten not-for-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations in Malaysia, Mexico, and South Africa for the 2023 Digital Equity Accelerator. Each organization is working toward the digital inclusion of marginalized populations and, with the support of the Accelerator, is poised to expand its reach and impact over the next six months. Selected organizations include:

Maine isn’t nearly as far removed as say, Alaska, but it still must cope with broadband challenges stemming from its remote location. Andrew Butcher, president of the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA), named two key hurdles to broadband access in Maine: the sheer rurality of the state and, on a related note, community capacity to drive demand. “There’s a significant amount of space and not enough humans,” Butcher said. “We have the highest concentration of rural population in the country, meaning that the majority of people in the state live in very rural areas.” The state consists of many