State

The US Department of the Treasury approved broadband projects in an additional group of three states under the American Rescue Plan’s (ARPA) Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (CPF): Massachusetts, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Together, these states will use their funding to connect more than 91,000 homes and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet. A key priority of the CPF program is to make funding available for reliable, affordable broadband infrastructure.

Electric co-ops are stepping up to close the digital divide. An effort in Virginia has connected 30,000 rural residents to the internet through fiber since 2017 and plans to hook up another 200,000 in the next three to five years. The work is being driven by the Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware Association of Broadband Cooperatives, which was established to provide a “singular, unifying voice for cooperative broadband interests.” Co-operatives are not driven by profits.

This is Digital Inclusion Week 2022, a time to raise awareness of solutions addressing home internet access, personal devices, and local technology training and support programs.

The Broadband Office in the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs is seeking proposals from qualified applicants to provide consultation services to the state and municipalities in regard to the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (CPF). New Hampshire has committed all of its available CPF program funds toward broadband buildout and is looking for a consultant that assures federal compliance, is a resource for NH communities, and helps the agency with other tasks as noted in the RFP Scope of Work. Anticipated Contract Start Date: Jan. 1, 2023

Wireline operators are battling to bring residents in Florida back online as quickly as possible in the wake of Hurricane Ian, but conditions on the ground are making it hard to get to all the sites in need of repair. According to Federal Communications Commission data, the storm knocked out wireline service for nearly 526,000 people after it made landfall on September 28.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed into law a bill that makes phone calls from California’s prisons free of charge.

New state data shows 2.5 percent of New York households lack the ability to hook up to the Internet. More than 132,000 households lack the ability to access broadband in New York. The town of Red House in Cattaraugus County is completely unserved. Twenty-nine towns, six school districts and four of the 10 tribal territories in the state have less than half of their residences with access to broadband. Internet providers warn that government broadband grants may not be able to cover the costs of building the services in locations where there may be fewer than five homes per square mile.

Now that the federal government included billions of tax dollars in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to improve internet access to more areas, the task of broadband mapping in Illinois is underway.

On Monday, September 26, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society Director of Research and Fellowships Dr. Revati Prasad hosted an online panel discussion, From the Ground Up: Broadband Mapping By and for Communities, on how communities and states are collecting data on local broadband availability as the Federal Communications Commission rolls out the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) program.

California's unprecedented new law to bolster protections for abortion-related personal information held by tech companies marks a new phase in the deepening legal fight between red and blue states over digital regulations. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed into law an abortion rights bill with a provision that protects reproductive digital information housed by companies headquartered or incorporated in the state.