Broadband Resources – Search Results
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Homework Gap Hits Communities of Color Harder
Millions of students do not have access to adequate connectivity, but Black, Latinx, and Native children are disproportionately impacted by the “homework gap.” One study found that children in one out of every three Black, Latinx, and Native American households did not have broadband access at home.… Read More
Chattanooga Uses Municipal Network to Give Student Free Internet Connections
Yesterday in an announcement via livestream, the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Hamilton County Schools, and the fiber arm of municipal utility Electric Power Board (EPB) announced a partnership to provide free Internet access and hardware to the 17,700 homes with school children on free or reduced lunch programs in the county.… Read More
Going HAM: How Rural Pennsylvanians Went Wireless
Tucked away in Kishacoquillas Valley (also known as Big Valley) between Stone and Jacks Mountains lies a 120-foot repurposed HAM radio tower, now the base of operations for the Rural Broadband Cooperative (RBC), a group bringing fixed wireless to a rural Pennsylvania community.… Read More
The DIGITAL Reservations Act: A Practical Answer to Tribal Connectivity Today
Yesterday, Congresswoman Deb Haaland and Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the DIGITAL Reservations Act, a bill which ends the current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) practice of selling wireless spectrum rights on the lands of Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations and grants ownership, management, and governance of all spectrum to those groups in perpetuity.… Read More
Mainers Commit to Rural Internet Expansion with $15 Million Bond Issue
Maine’s High-Speed Internet Infrastructure Bond Issue has passed. 76% of voters authorized the issuance of $15 million in general obligation bonds to expand broadband access for residents in underserved and unserved areas.… Read More
Google Fiber Comes to Iowa, Drawn by Community Broadband Infrastructure
The City of West Des Moines, Iowa, announced an innovative public-private partnership with Google Fiber to bring gigabit Internet to all 67,000 of its citizens. The city will build conduit connecting every home and business, available for use by different providers. Google Fiber will be the first, laying and maintaining its own fiber once the city’s construction is complete.… Read More
From Ames to Waterloo: An Update on Community Broadband in Iowa
Iowa is home to many community networks, from co-ops to muni cable, fiber, and other technologies. Three communities in the state have just recently made important announcements about their plans, and several others are moving forward with networks.… Read More
Georgia Launches Trailblazing Internet Access Map
The Georgia Broadband Deployment Initiative has completed its mapping project of broadband Internet access. It offers a far more detailed look at who does and does not have Internet access — right down to individual homes and businesses.… Read More
Is Your City Allowed to Close the Digital Divide During the Pandemic?
As the pandemic drags on, local governments across the country are looking for ways to connect their residents. To help local officials and advocates figure out if their community is able to take action, we worked with the Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC) to develop a step-by-step guide.… Read More
Local Cooperative Grows Better Broadband in Rural Alabama
Alabama-based Cullman Electric Cooperative recently launched its new Fiber-to-the-Home network Sprout Fiber Internet. The first phase of the co-op’s project will extend the Sprout Fiber Internet network to 12,000 members, making gigabit Internet access available to both residents and businesses.… Read More
Spelling Out Our Vision at the Community Broadband Networks Initiative
After many years working to promote community networks, we here at Community Broadband Networks want to lay out our broader vision of a better connected country. We hope this vision pulls together all we’ve done and continue to do, and provides a framework for understanding our worldview.… Read More
Tell Your U.S. Representative to Support the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act
Yesterday, representatives in the U.S. House introduced the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act, which calls for the federal government to invest $100 billion to ensure all Americans have access to affordable, high-quality Internet access. Contact your House representative to ask them to support the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act and to sign on as a cosponsor.… Read More
New Paper Reveals Systemic Racism of Government Programs That Invest Only in Rural Internet
For years, federal and state governments have spent billions of dollars on efforts to build broadband networks in underserved rural communities while doing very little to bring home Internet access to unconnected Americans living in our nation’s cities. A new white paper, released recently by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), outlines how this policy decision has a racist impact — benefiting mainly white, non-Hispanic people while disadvantaging many Black Americans and people of color in urban areas, where the majority of unconnected households are.… Read More
Idaho’s Proposed Broadband Grant Cares More About Protecting Monopolies Than Expanding High-Quality Connectivity
As states are considering whether and how to use federal CARES Act funding to improve Internet access, Idaho is poised to enact counter-productive limits on who can use that money by excluding community-owned solutions. Though many states have been under pressure from big monopoly providers to only fund for-profit business models with broadband subsidies, those voices seem largely absent in this Idaho fight. Instead, it is some local monopoly providers that are threatened by a wave of new community networks that break the old monopoly approach to broadband networks.… Read More
Maine Asks Voters About New Funding for Internet Infrastructure
In less than a month Maine will hold a Special Referendum election which includes a measure with significant ramifications for Internet access in the state. On July 14, Mainers will be asked to vote Yes or No on Question 1, a $15 million Internet Infrastructure Bond Issue designed to bring high-speed service to the approximately 85,000 households in unserved or underserved areas. The $15 million in general obligation bonds would join $30 million in matching federal, private, and local funds and go to ConnectME to provide funding for broadband projects with an emphasis on unserved or underserved areas.… Read More