To help local governments that want to improve connectivity during the pandemic, we at the Community Broadband Networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance have teamed up with the Local Solutions Support Center to produce a number of helpful resources, including a guide for local governments and an interactive state broadband preemption map.… Read More
A new pilot project is bringing telehealth services to barbershops and salons. The aim is to leverage all of the unique characteristics of these businesses to pioneer early detection and eventually ongoing treatment of high blood pressure and the constellation of associated complications, which disproportionately affect African Americans.… Read More
Less than two years after Mississippi lifted its ban on electric cooperative broadband networks, at least 15 of the 25 co-ops in the state have announced plans to provide Internet access to members, with more on the way.… Read More
A new initiative in San Antonio, Texas, called Connected Beyond the Classroom, which will begin launching over the next weeks, will leverage city-owned fiber infrastructure and $27 million in CARES Act funds to connect 20,000 students across the city’s 50 most-vulnerable neighborhoods in a bid to close the digital divide and ensure teachers, students, and their parents can continue to learn this fall and beyond.… Read More
Late last month, voters in Block Island, Rhode Island’s sole town of New Shoreham gathered (at safe distances) in the local school building and on its grounds to approve $8 million in borrowing to build an island-wide, municipal fiber network. Residents were overwhelmingly in favor of funding the broadband network, which would be the first of its kind in the state.… Read More
This report investigates broadband competition in communities across the country.… Read More
Today on the podcast we welcome Angela Siefer and Craig Settles. Together, they untangle the long history of broadband subsidies and racial bias, and how that has come to influence who has affordable connection options today. They also talk about the current stage of telehealth and the ramifications of the Digital Equity Act since its adoption a year ago.… Read More
UTOPIA Fiber, the publicly owned, open access network, has begun a pilot wildfire-detection projected which has the potential to provide safer, faster, less expensive service to communities in Utah, saving the state tens of millions of dollars a year.… Read More
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
