Research

The American Connection Corps (ACC) is the nation's largest fellowship program focused on bridging the digital divide. Led by Lead for America and The American Connection Project, this initiative addresses broadband development and digital inclusion while strengthening our country's next generation of civic leaders. In their first three months, the ACC Fellows have already made significant improvements in bridging the nation's digital divide:

This study examines how municipal governments have constructed the concept of digital equity through textual evidence, the digital equity plans of Kansas City (MO), Portland (OR), San Francisco (CA), and Seattle (WA). Adopting an approach from critical discourse studies, comparative analysis of the texts demonstrates how digital equity plans conceive of digital equity, characterize current problematic circumstances, and prescribe actions to make change.

Parks Associates’ latest Consumer Insights Dashboard analyzes the firm’s quarterly surveys of 10,000 US internet households to track consumer adoption of and changes in home services, including home internet, pay-TV, and mobile services. The firm’s Home Services Dashboard estimates that almost 114 million US households access the internet at home at speeds faster than dial-up.

In a large number of communities across the United States, shopping for Internet access is really challenging. In recent years, groups like Consumer Reports and New America have called attention to the challenge and pushed for the explicit disclosure of service details like download speed, upload speed, monthly service cost, and other information that helps potential subscribers compare providers.

The government is working to transfer some federally-used spectrum to the private sector to help build mobile broadband networks, including 5G. The National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) facilitates these transfers, which can be complex and take years. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that NTIA lacks a formal process for planning these transfers. We recommended that it develop one to help address challenges and risks before they arise.

The Greater Des Moines Partnership and regional partners have unveiled Broadband User Dashboard Maps based on data and research from the Central Iowa Broadband Internet Study. The maps were created as a part of a long-term goal to create a framework under which governments, the public, and providers can align in new and innovative ways to create solutions to the digital divide present in Greater Des Moines (DSM).

COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the central role of digital media in our everyday lives. We now are in a historic transition, from a nation organized for a pandemic response to a recovery that surely will create a “new normal.” So it’s timely and important to look back at how digital media has been shaped during this period, and more importantly, to assess what lies ahead, based on current data and trends. This post-pandemic new normal, however defined, will not be binary.

• AT&T now shares the Games Experience award with T-Mobile.
• T-Mobile exceeds the 10 Mbps mark in Upload Speed Experience, having the fastest Upload Speed Experience.
• T-Mobile keeps hold of the Voice App Experience award, ahead of Verizon and AT&T which tied.

In the absence of a comprehensive federal law, a handful of large states have passed or begun to enact data privacy legislation. More states are likely to pass similar laws in the coming years, which would create a patchwork of different and sometimes conflicting state privacy laws regulating the commercial collection and use of personal data.

Despite growing interest in broadband provided by municipally-owned and operated fiber-to-the-home networks, the academic literature has yet to undertake a systematic assessment of these projects' financial performance. To fill this gap, we utilize municipalities' official reports to offer an empirical evaluation of the financial performance of every municipal fiber project in the US operating in 2010 through 2019.