Localism

Mayor Muriel Bowser was joined by Chief Technology Officer Lindsey Parker and broadband provider WeLink to announce the Community Internet Program (CIP), a new initiative that will give Internet Service Providers (ISPs) free access to Washington (DC)-owned building rooftops if they commit to providing high-speed connections (at minimum, 200 Mbps download/200 Mbps upload) at reduced or no cost to households eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Program. Their antennas will also serve as neighborhood hubs that will be able to feed internet to residential properties – all at no cost to DC.

Installing fiber-optic internet in sparsely populated places like western Kansas is extremely expensive, even with government subsidies. But some smaller, local broadband providers are finding ways to make it work where the big national companies have not. Federal and state governments have poured billions into trying to bring more bandwidth to the remote corners of the country. But for many people in rural places, it hasn’t made any difference. An estimated 42 million Americans still don’t have high-speed internet, or what most people today simply think of as internet.

A connection to high-speed and reliable internet is a necessity in most homes, but tens of thousands of Mainers are still lagging behind. According to state data, nearly 80,000 households in Maine don't meet the minimum standard for high-speed internet. The State of Maine is expected to distribute a record amount of funding in 2022 to help connect the tens of thousands of residents who are considered unserved by high-speed internet.

Loup Power District is developing a funding resolution that can lead to the construction of a 300-mile backbone network to help area farmers receive high-speed broadband. The effort will affect residents in four rural counties: Boone, Colfax, Nance and Platte (NE). The power company is developing a funding resolution that would be executed by each public entity involved in a potential backbone network in the four-county area.

The city of El Paso (TX) is shifting its focus from providing COVID-19 relief to recovery as the county experiences low weekly coronavirus cases. More than $154 million were allocated from the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds in accordance with the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) requirements to various departments and programs across the city. Of this funding, El Paso is devoting $10 million to last-mile broadband infrastructure to expand the city's backbone to areas 54 percent below the poverty line.

The controversial telecom company LTD Broadband has long been criticized by those who argue it can’t deliver high-speed internet to Minnesotans as promised using an unprecedented $311 million in grants from the federal government.

A new analysis by the University of Chicago has revealed vast differences in internet connectivity across Chicago (IL), with some neighborhoods reporting more than one-third of households offline. Researchers are now working to collect their own data to determine how the internet performs across neighborhoods, with the hope of influencing how $65 billion in federal funds to expand broadband access is distributed.

With Internet connectivity now viewed as a public necessity for telework and education, universities across the US are partnering with local governments and community organizations on initiatives to expand broadband access and close the digital divide once and for all.

Oakland (CA)’s new chief information officer Tony Batalla said he would work to reduce internet access gaps in the city and support digital literacy efforts. Oakland is home to a major port, adjacent to the University of California, Berkeley, and near Silicon Valley, but along with those economic advantages are some neighborhoods in the city beset by crime and poverty. Batalla, who started May 2, sees internet access and technology helping address the needs of those communities.

A disagreement over who should get free access to high speed internet in some parts of Wisconsin likely means no one is getting a new connection anytime soon. Gov Tony Evers (D-WI) last week vetoed SB 365, which would have expanded high speed internet service in rural parts of the state. The governor said expanding broadband access is one of his top priorities, but scuttled the plan because he doesn’t like how Republican lawmakers were going about it.