Thursday, March 21, 2024
Elon Musk recently blasted the federal government’s decision to deny a nearly billion-dollar subsidy for rural connectivity that had been previously awarded to his satellite broadband company, Starlink. No matter what you think about him, Musk’s outburst points to an uncomfortable reality: new technologies are rendering America’s policy for promoting and subsidizing broadband telecommunications outdated and counterproductive.
In a household-based assessment of digital needs conducted by the University of Liverpool, parents and young people defined what is ‘enough’ for a household with children to feel digitally included. Respondents considered devices and internet services, basic functional skills, and critical skills. This Minimal Digital Living Standard (MLDS) includes:
The Affordable Connectivity Program is ending and California has a monumental, once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead our communities into a new era of equitable affordable connectivity, not unlike the electrification of the United States in the early-to-mid 1900s. Internet affordability in California, like much of the country, relies on the goodwill of profit-driven Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and family enrollment in the federal Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a subsidy program whose
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel called on the FCC to move ahead with plans to make targeted investments in the deployment of wireless broadband services in rural communities. The proposed rules shared with her fellow Commissioners would, if adopted by a vote of the full Commission, relaunch the 5G Fund for Rural America.
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