Jessica Dine

The internet plays an essential, everyday role in the lives of Americans. Internet access—both fixed and mobile—is a critical resource that allows individuals and families to participate in work and education opportunities, receive telehealth services, access public benefits and services, communicate with loved ones, and more.  Yet affordability remains one of the primary barriers to reliable broadband access.

It’s clear we need more resiliency in our broadband policy. If nothing else, the hurricanes ravaging the U.S. Southeast have shown us that. In the last few weeks, pervasive wireless and wireline communication outages have left people that are already struggling in the wake of disaster completely cut off from resources, important news updates, and loved ones.

As the main drivers of the digital divide evolve, digital inclusion efforts that seek to increase digital skills, build consumer trust in digital technologies, and promote information about affordability plans and other broadband availability programs have fast become key to getting everyone online. This report argues for the creation of a national digital skills framework and explains the immediate policy context.

In the fourth installment of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation’s Access America series, Jess talks to Brian Allenby, program operations and communications director for the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA). They chat about the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, Maine's digital equity intensive approach, and how the state has been promoting regional broadband plans and activity. "The Regional Tribal Broadband Partners were convened as a working group to share information at what was happening at that local level.

In the second installment of the Information Technology and Information Foundation’s Access America series, Jess Dine discusses the challenges and opportunities of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program for the state of Michigan with Jessica Randall of Michigan’s broadband office. They talk about the way that Michigan intertwined BEAD's deployment mandate with broader inclusion and equity concerns in the Michigan State Digital Equity Plan.

If all goes well, the $42.5 billion in BEAD funding that Congress allotted in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act should be enough to extend broadband coverage across the country. But it will depend on how states and territories use the money. The first half of 2024 is a critical juncture as states solicit feedback and approval of their Initial Proposals from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which administers the BEAD program.

In a time when broadband affordability still plays a major role in the digital divide, the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) meets an obvious need. Roughly two years into the program, around 23 million households are enrolled for discounted broadband and a one-time device subsidy. We should be able to consider this case closed: We now have a strong, effective mechanism for closing the affordability gap. Indeed, ACP enjoys bipartisan support, and its virtues are extolled by industry and consumer advocates alike.

Policymakers inundated with self-serving arguments for specific spectrum allocation need ways to evaluate which actually advance the public interest. By focusing on the goal of productive spectrum use, one can differentiate between reasoning that would enhance productivity and that which would only advance private interests.

In the third decade of the 21st century, getting online is no longer optional, and providing financial assistance to US households that can’t afford broadband should be as much a given as food stamps. More broadly, from a macro perspective, high rates of broadband use benefit society and the economy; and from a micro perspective, those least likely to be online are those who would in many ways benefit most from it. In both cases, broadband policy should prioritize connecting remaining offline households in order to achieve universal connectivity.

Digital inclusion efforts need to target the reasons people remain offline, and at this point, the digital divide is more of a problem of adoption than deployment. Successful digital inclusion efforts have a few key things in common: They are flexible and individualized, adhere to consistent high-level standards, and share best practices to minimize waste while adapting programs to meet local needs. Digital inclusion efforts include any of the various attempts to get people online.