August 2022

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Computer Reach Form Partnership to End Digital Divide

The City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (PA), and Computer Reach successfully donated 324 desktop computers, 74 laptop computers, 427 monitors, 243 keyboards, and 170 mice to Computer Reach. This first donation, totaling $92,000 and completed in early August 2022, is the culmination of multiple years of work by the Department of Innovation & Performance (I&P) to give back these devices to the community and avoid paying an e-waste recycler for proper disposal.

Tips to Develop a State Broadband Plan

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) and Digital Equity Programs requires a Five Year State Broadband Action Plan in order to tap $100 million of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding. In creating a competent and competitive plan to secure federal broadband funding, states should take into account a number of tips. First, states should designate or form a State Broadband Office to centralize broadband efforts, resources, and goals.

Bringing mobile connectivity to nowhere

T-Mobile and Space X announced their “Coverage Above & Beyond” partnership to bring about the “end of mobile dead zones.” It is one of a growing number of announced partnerships, ventures and rumors of similar nature and purpose of expanding the frontier of connectivity where it hasn’t gone before. “Coverage Above & Beyond” promises to provide satellite-based cellular connectivity directly to T-Mobile’s current smartphones thereby providing coverage anywhere in the U.S., its territories, as well as the vast unregulated oceans. However, much of the technical burden seems to rest on t