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  2. October 2024

October 2024

Ensuring Affordable Broadband for all Virginians

The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) sees the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program as Virginia’s opportunity to finish the job of extending broadband access and also make long-term, transformational investments into broadband affordability and adoption. With the $1.48 billion in BEAD funds for Virginia, DHCD is finalizing plans to extend broadband infrastructure to the remaining unserved locations without a funded solution for connectivity and designing programs to meaningfully address broadband affordability and adoption.

Weekly Digest

Ensuring Affordable Broadband for all Virginians

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

Friday, October 4, 2024

Pioneers of Change at Universidad Ana G. Mendez, Carolina Campus

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month by showcasing one of its Internet for All grantees that embodies this year’s theme: "Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together." At Universidad Ana G. Méndez, Carolina Campus (UAGM-CC) principal investigator and agent of change Dr. Luis Rosario-Albert leads the effort to connect Carolina County, Puerto Rico residents to Internet services and digital skills training through the UAGCM-CC Broadband Digital Inclusion Project (BDIP).

The policy risk inside Mark Zuckerberg's glasses

Meta has always insisted that building the “metaverse” is a long-term play, but a flashy recent demo from Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated just how immediate a policy concern it might become if people really start to inhabit virtual reality at scale. At Meta’s annual Connect conference, Zuckerberg strode onstage to demonstrate the company’s prototype Orion augmented reality glasses.

A Preliminary Evaluation of the ACP Program

The Federal Communications Commission's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is a means-tested federal program launched in January 2022 to support broadband connectivity among low-income households in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The expiration of the ACP benefit, the largest ever consumer support program for telecommunication services in U.S. history, invites a discussion about the impact of the program and what alternative policy mechanisms exist to promote equitable access to broadband.

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