Report: Most Americans Have No Real Choice in Internet Providers
This report investigates broadband competition in communities across the country.… Read More
“We Can’t Build It and Just Assume People Will Come”: Digital Inclusion and Equity Today
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
Community Owned Broadband Helps Utah Watch for Wildfires
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
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 Students 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