Universal Broadband

Although most of the nation’s rural counties lost population from 2010 to 2020, new Census data shows that rural counties with better broadband access tended to do better with population change than counties that lacked access. As more residents had access to broadband as defined by the Federal Communications Commission in 2011, the county population increased nine years later. Most counties did improve their broadband situation as the 2010s continued. Broadband access grew as the decade progressed for both kinds of counties – those that lost population and those that gained.  But the impor

Ajit Pai led the Federal Communications Commission as chairman during the Trump administration, after earlier serving as a commissioner during the Obama administration and as a member of the agency’s staff. Trained as a lawyer, in April 2021 he became a partner with Searchlight Capital Partners, where he helps guide the private-equity firm’s digital infrastructure investments. According to Mr. Pai, private capital can play a vital role in providing broadband internet access to the many areas of the US that still have slow service or none at all.

The US Department of the Treasury released its long-awaited guidance for how states, territories, freely associated states, and Tribal governments can spend the $10 billion allocated in Section 604 of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for Capital Projects.

This year, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society celebrates our 40th year of protecting democratic values and championing a communications system that works for everyone. Our values of access, equity, and diversity remain the same. But we’ve advanced our mission with the times. We began as an institution focused on the public interest issues raised by emerging communications technologies and on championing long-term public policy solutions to address these issues.

This week, the Department of the Treasury released guidance for the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund program established by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

In the first-of-its-kind collaboration, nationally-recognized researchers from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, in partnership with the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) and with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts, will identify effective and sustainable strategies for bringing affordable Internet to all Americans.

The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) calls on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and public agencies to begin advertising and increase awareness programs to reach the nation’s neediest residents.  According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), only 1 in 12 eligible households, or 5.7 million households nationally, have enrolled in the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) as of September 19.  In a separate analysis by CETF, based on FCC enrollment data, 35 percent of 2 million eligible California households have enrolled for a total of nearly 706,000 households.  The analysi

Billions of dollars aimed at helping low-income households afford internet access are going unclaimed as the Federal Communications Commission faces hurdles to enrolling participants in the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. FCC officials and their nonprofit partners have to marshal resources for outreach to help individuals understand how the program works and overcome mistrust of government. Nonprofits and local organizations are best suited to enroll low-income individuals because they are trusted in those communities, agency officials and partners said.

The Federal Communications Commission is partnering with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) to acknowledge Lifeline Awareness Week, September 20-24, 2021. Lifeline is an FCC program designed to help make communications services more affordable for low-income consumers.

The digital divide has remained stubbornly persistent for decades, even as the internet has become steadily more inextricable from daily life, business, health care, and education. Research group BroadbandNow estimates that 42 million Americans have no broadband access, while a depressing 120 million people in the US are without any connection fast enough to even call the internet, according to Microsoft. These disparities are particularly severe among Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and rural communities.