Localism

As a nonprofit dedicated to guiding communities into the connected future, US Ignite partnered with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to design Project OVERCOME to test creative solutions to connect the unconnected. The

When it comes to affordable broadband, Vermont has always been a trailblazer.

Our recommendations for addressing the three prongs of digital inequity – connectivity, device ownership, and access to training – will require a community-led “all hands on deck” approach. Each recommendation will require commitment from the public sector – including the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and/or the federal government – as well as our city’s private sector and broader civic community. Community anchor institutions – both government institutions like CPS and Chicago Public Library (CPL) – as well as community-based nonprofits, will play a critical role.

American Connection Corps, an initiative operated by Lead for America, is the nation’s largest fellowship program focused on bridging the digital divide. AmeriCorps, Land O’Lakes, Heartland Forward’s Connecting the Heartland initiative (which supports fellows in their target states of Illinois, Ohio, Arkansas, and Tennessee), and select partners from the American Connection Project all support the corps.

A recent article about Silicon Valley residents who formed a co-op Internet service provider might have people wondering what it would take to get the same thing in their hometowns. The most obvious obstacle is the price—in Los Altos Hills, California, residents have had to pay anywhere from $5,000 to $12,000 upfront for a fiber-to-the-home Internet connection. But the company that built the Los Altos Hills network says its model isn't just for wealthy people. "This is not the 1 percent solution, as people derisively call it to my face," Next Level Networks CEO David Barron said.

The Just Transition Fund (JTF) provides grants, technical assistance, peer-to-peer support, and education to help coal communities identify, prepare for, and apply for federal funding for broadband projects that meet local needs. Roughly one-third of residents in the rural and tribal areas the JTF serves cannot access high-speed internet—an inequity that restricts work, education, health care, public services, and civic engagement.

Tribal lands and Native American communities are some of the least connected places in the United States. Infrastructure deployment lags behind that in other rural communities. Only 46.6 percent of housing units on rural tribal lands have access to broadband service. And even when they are connected, households on tribal lands tend to pay more for basic broadband plans and receive lower speeds.

Building a critical mass of informed and organized community voices in the broadband policymaking arena to balance the historical presence of private industry is a long-term capacity challenge in California—and in other states. How do digital equity advocates make their voices heard during the rulemaking process for California’s $6 billion statewide broadband rollout? The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has new resources and authorities to be a partner to local governments and other agencies in closing the digital divide.

Heartland Forward is a nonpartisan, nonprofit “think and do tank” focused on improving economic performance in the center of the United States. Its Connecting the Heartland initiative aims to boost internet availability, speeds, and adoption rates across America’s heartland.

The digital divide needs to be closed for society to grow, but without the high demand to ensure a return on investment, many smaller, less fortunate communities risk falling behind in a widening gap. The longer larger companies wait to prioritize these regions, the further isolated the people who live there may become from the rapidly digitizing future. Who will take ownership to bring those communities across the digital divide?