Research

When it comes to broadband usage growth rates, downstream is down and upstream is up. While the total volume of downstream and upstream usage continues to climb, the 3Q24 edition of the OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report indicates a continuation of a trend that OpenVault analysis has identified throughout the modern broadband era: With the exception of the pandemic year of 2020, downstream growth rates have slowed each year, while the rate of increase in the upstream has trended steadily upward.

In the United States, the approach to governing artificial intelligence (AI) is still in its early stages. As policymakers, developers, and civil society work together to navigate an uncertain digital future, encouraging greater openness in the AI model ecosystem will be critical to upholding democratic values, serving the public interest, and promoting innovation.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act sets an ambitious overarching goal: internet for all. But past access and adoption, states are asked to think about how increased access to and use of broadband can drive equitable outcomes in areas like access to health care and essential services, education and job training, and participation in the society, economy, and civic institutions of the Nation.

In the heat of the 2024 election, news influencers seemed to be everywhere.

Telling an evidence-based story of organizational success is essential for acquiring grants, building trust with clients, and establishing strong ties with partner organizations. As federal funding radically alters the digital equity landscape over the coming decade, this task will only become more important. To support organizations positioned to receive those funds we build on existing evaluation guides targeting the digital equity practitioner community.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act identifies Veterans as one of eight “covered populations” and encourages states to research and address the barriers Veterans face in accessing, adopting, and benefiting from internet access and other digital technologies. States’ digital equity plans acknowledge the common challenges facing Veterans and other covered populations while also developing strategies to address the unique needs of Veterans.

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.

The 2024 Rural Telecommunications Benchmark Study provides data from 147 rural telecommunications companies and provides insight into the financial and operational performance of the telecommunications industry. As of June 2024, participating companies accepted $950 million of federal, state, and local government broadband grants compared to $600 as of 2022. THhis represents a 50 percent increase in broadband grants over the amounts for 2022.

Building on the Defeating the Digital Divide series, Kids First Chicago presents new findings from the 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) data, released in December 2023, and makes three key recommendations: 

Community networks risk failure when they attempt to emulate models from elsewhere without engaging the community in the process and making appropriate adaptations. These ‘build it and they will come’ models rarely work over the long term. This research project explored claims from residents of a low-income neighbourhood in the “North End” of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, that inadequate and unaffordable Internet connectivity limits their access to critical communication tools, resources, and information.