Connecting Anchor Institutions: A Vision of Our Future

To meet the goals of the National Broadband Plan, America must renew its commitment to bring affordable multi-gigabit speed broadband access by 2020 to thousands of Community Anchor Institutions (CAIs) – the schools, libraries, health clinics, and community centers that hold our communities together. That is the message in a new “Vision” Paper being released by the SHLB Coalition titled, “Connecting Anchor Institutions: A Broadband Vision of Our Future,” written by Christine Mullins with a foreword from Blair Levin. Key findings in the paper illustrate why action is needed, including:

• Just 65 percent of public schools have a fiber connection. And 63 percent are below the gigabit goal, meaning nearly 40 million children are without enough bandwidth for digital learning.
• About 42 percent of all public libraries have a broadband connection 10 Mbps or slower.
• Rural health clinics face a significant broadband speed gap compared to metro communities, impacting Electronic Medical Records and Health Information Exchanges.

“Our investment in bringing high-capacity broadband to anchors institutions, and through anchors to the rest of the community, will determine whether the country will be divided between digital ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ or whether we capture the benefits of the Internet for all people,” said Adrianne B. Furniss, Executive Director of the Benton Foundation, the publisher of SHLB’s broadband action plan. “High-capacity broadband allows anchor institutions to expand their crucial missions so every student and citizen can reach their potential and be a full participant in our increasingly digital world.”

[Benton Foundation was a sponsor and publisher of the action plan]