Universal Broadband

Department of Health and Human Services Targets Telehealth for Emergency Services in New Grant Program

The Department of Health and Human Services is offering grants to rural healthcare providers looking to use telehealth to improve emergency services, such as stroke, behavioral health or EMS care.

FCC Proposes Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Auction Procedures

The Federal Communications Commission proposed procedures for the first phase of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction, which will make up to $16 billion available for the deployment of fixed broadband networks across rural America. The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is targeting funding towards some of the least-served parts of the country and October’s Phase I auction could bring high-speed broadband to as many six million unserved homes and businesses in 2020, representing the FCC’s biggest step ever toward bridging the digital divide.

State Legislatures 2020: Broadband Preemption Still a Risk

As state lawmakers debate in committee rooms and Capitol chambers around the country, various broadband and Internet network infrastructure bills are appearing on agendas. Some are good news for local communities interested in developing publicly owned networks while other preemption bills make projects more difficult to plan, fund, and execute. We've gathered together some notable bills from several states that merit watching - good, bad, and possibly both. 

What Are States Doing to Close the Digital Divide?

Strong, collaborative relationships between stakeholders are the cornerstone of Minnesota's efforts to expand broadband access. West Virginia has promoted broadband expansion by examining and eliminating barriers to deployment. Colorado has made a significant investment in broadband planning at the regional level. In 2017 the Tennessee Legislature created the Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Grant Program to support broadband deployment in unserved areas of the state. Virginia employs two programs to achieve "functionally universal" broadband coverage.

Digital prosperity: How broadband can deliver health and equity to all communities

Over the past year, Brookings Metro and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance pursued research to understand the connections between broadband and health and equity, assess the gaps in broadband access and adoption, the market and policy barriers that lead to those gaps, and promising points of intervention for local, state, and federal leaders to deliver shared value to individuals and entire communities. If broadband is essential infrastructure, the country’s digital divide confirms the challenges to bringing its benefits to every person, regardless of demographics or geography.

Pregnancy-Related Deaths Are Up. Could Broadband Help?

With the introduction of a bill titled Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act in both the Senate and House of Representatives, some legislators believe high-speed Internet could make a difference for pregnant mothers. The bill would require information on maternal health to be included in the Federal Communications Commission’s 

FCC Commissioner Starks Visits Puerto Rico to Learn About Making Communications More Resilient

The weekend of Feb 21, Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks visited Puerto Rico, where he convened a field hearing on communications resiliency and visited mountain areas to learn about the challenges of deploying resilient infrastructure in Puerto Rico’s rural areas.  

Senators Push USDA to Expand Rural Broadband Access

Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) led a bipartisan group of senators to urge the Trump administration to expand access to rural broadband by changing a requirement that prevents providers in rural communities across 19 states from even applying to the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) ReConnect program, which funds rural broadband deployment. Since 2018, USDA has been authorized to make grants and loans of about $600 million per year to foster rural broadband through its ReConnect program.

Tackling the Tribal Digital Divide

In the United States, 17 million of the 21 million people who lack fixed-line broadband access live in rural areas. (That’s one-third of all rural Americans.) The issue is twice as bad on rural tribal lands, where two-thirds of people lack high-speed internet connectivity.

USDA Invests $9.1 Million in Broadband for Rural South Carolina Communities

The US Department of Agriculture invested $9.1 million in high-speed broadband infrastructure that will create or improve e-Connectivity for 6,251 homes in rural Kershaw County. TruVista Communications Inc. will use a $9.1 million ReConnect grant to deploy 257 miles of fiber-optic cable in unserved areas of Kershaw County. This investment is expected to cover an 81-square-mile area that includes 6,251 rural households, 24 farms, 15 businesses, four critical community facilities, three educational facilities and a health care center.

USDA Invests $2.3 Million in Broadband for Rural Eastern Nevada

The US Department of Agriculture invested $2.3 million in a high-speed broadband infrastructure project that will create or improve rural e-Connectivity for 273 households, seven farms, seven businesses and a critical community facility in eastern Nevada. Beehive Telephone Company Inc. will use a $2.3 million ReConnect grant to construct a fixed wireless system and three Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) systems to connect 273 households, seven businesses, seven farms and a critical community facility in a 229-square-mile area of eastern Elko and White Pine counties.

USDA Invests $3.3 Million in High-Speed Broadband for Rural Beaverhead County

The US Department of Agriculture invested $3.3 million in a high-speed broadband infrastructure project that will create or improve rural e-Connectivity for 142 homes, businesses, farms and ranches in Beaverhead County. Southern Montana Telephone Company (SMT) will use a $3.3 million ReConnect Program grant to construct a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network in Beaverhead County. The 1,688-square-mile service area includes 109 households, 26 farms and ranches, seven businesses and the Grant Fire Station.

Who Gets 5G — And Who Gets Left Behind — Has Some Worried About Digital Inequality

What gets left out of the conversation about 5G is that the service will likely be rolled out the same way as in technologies past — predominantly in wealthier areas.

FCC Seeks Comment on Alaska Plan Model

As part of implementation of the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to support mobile and fixed service in high-cost areas of Alaska (Alaska Plan), the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau proposes and seeks comment on a population distribution methodology for estimating the number of Alaskans who receive mobile service within census blocks in remote areas. The Bureau proposes to use this methodology to determine whether mobile service providers participating in the Alaska Plan have met their performance commitments through deployment in eligible census blocks.

Special Servicing of Telecommunications Programs Loans for Financially Distressed Borrowers

The Rural Utilities Service is issuing a final rule with request for comments to outline the general policies for servicing actions associated with financially distressed borrowers from the Telecommunications Infrastructure Loan Program, Rural Broadband Program, Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program, Broadband Initiatives Program, and Rural eConnectivity Pilot Program.

Cincinnati Bell, Butler Rural Electric Co-op Deal Signals Growing Interest for Telco Electric Partnerships

A Cincinnati Bell, Butler Rural Electric Cooperative partnership will expand fiber broadband to parts of rural Ohio. The deal highlights the potential growing interest in telco electric partnerships for rural broadband. The Cincinnati Bell, Butler Rural Electric partnership will initially bring Cincy Bell’s Fioptics fiber broadband service to approximately 2,000 Butler Electric members, beginning in late 2020. The offering will include 1 Gig service, home phone, whole-home Wi-Fi, and internet security.

USDA Invests $5 Million in Broadband for Rural Georgia Communities

The US Department of Agriculture invested $5 million in two, high-speed broadband infrastructure projects that will create or improve rural e-Connectivity for 1,221 rural households, 32 pre-subscribed businesses and 20 pre-subscribed farms in McIntosh and Evans counties in Georgia. The Darien Telephone Company will use a $1 million ReConnect Program grant to expand high-speed internet service to underserved households and businesses in McIntosh County, using Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology.

Commissioner Starks Remarks at Rural Broadband Roundtable

The persistent problem of the digital divide is hardening into a state of “Internet Inequality.” We know that millions of Virginians still lack access to high-quality affordable broadband. But, because of flaws in how the Federal Communications Commission collects its broadband data, we don’t actually know where they all are. That’s a cause for concern, and I am pleased that our friends in Congress sitting here today are also working to require the FCC to secure reliable broadband deployment data. For too long, the FCC has subsidized networks that are obsolete by the time they are built.

USDA Invests Nearly $24 Million for Broadband in Utah’s Uintah Basin

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) invested $23.6 million in high-speed broadband infrastructure. This investment will build an all-fiber network that will serve more than 3,000 farms, businesses and homes spread over more than 400 square miles in rural Duchesne and Uintah counties. UBTA-UBET Communications Inc., dba STRATA Networks, will use an $11.8 million ReConnect loan and an $11.8 million ReConnect grant to expand high-speed broadband connectivity within the Uintah Basin, including Ute Indian Tribe communities on the Uintah and Ouray reservation.

California’s Broadband Fund Ignores Fiber and Favors Slow DSL

The California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), a program launched in 2008 to connect all Californians to high-speed Internet, was an early success. It helped build middle mile open access fiber to hard-to-serve communities and delivered high-speed access to areas that never had Internet. It funded fiber-to-the-home to public housing, ensuring low income users had the same high-speed access that wealthy neighborhoods had. And it was rapidly closing the digital divide that low income urban and rural Californians faced, due to years of neglect from incumbent Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

'As essential as roads': How North Dakota became a broadband leader

North Dakota has fostered a tech sector thanks in part to being one of the most connected states in the country — a giant feat considering it’s also one of the most rural. “We realized that for us to be competitive, we had to have that connectivity,” says Doug Burgum, who was president of Great Plains Software when it was bought by Microsoft and is now governor of the state. 

North Carolina Takes a Deeper Look at Statewide Access, Adoption, Digital Divide

The North Carolina Department of Information Technology (NCDIT) shared data indices that shine a light on the state of broadband access, adoption, and how the digital divide plays out across the state. The indices look at county-level data and reveal a variety of factors. Some results are a stark reality that the digital divide has widened as technology in some regions has advanced — such as indicators that show people have only DSL service and no Internet access at all juxtaposed against those communities where a majority of folks subscribe to available fiber optic connectivity. 

New Data Shows Digital Divide Closing & Broadband Competition Rising

The Federal Communications Commission’s Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) released updated data showing that from December 2016 to December 2018, the number of Americans without any options for at least 250/25 Mbps fixed terrestrial broadband service plummeted by 74%, from 181.7 million to 47 million. And during that same time period, the number of Americans with no options for at least 25/3 Mbps fixed terrestrial broadband service fell by 30%, from 26.1 million to 18.3 million.

FCC Seeks to Refresh Net Neutrality Docket

In Mozilla Corp. v. FCC,  the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the vast majority of the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 decision to end net neutrality protections. However, the court also remanded three discrete issues for further consideration by the FCC. On February 6, 2020, the D.C. Circuit denied all pending petitions for rehearing, and the Court issued its mandate on February 18, 2020. With this Public Notice, the Wireline Competition Bureau seeks to refresh the record regarding the issues remanded to the FCC by the Mozilla Court.