New Case Studies Show Schools, Libraries and Health Care Providers Play Key Role in Broadband Expansion and Adoption

In 2010, as part of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded more than $450 million in matching grants to establish or upgrade public computer centers and initiate innovative broadband adoption programs in underserved communities.

Four years later, that investment has resulted in more than 3,000 new or improved public computer centers and produced 600,000 new household broadband subscriptions. These grants complement the $3.4 billion in infrastructure investments from NTIA that have enabled BTOP grant recipients to connect more than 21,000 community anchor institutions with ultra-fast broadband, including 2,400 medical and health care providers, more than 1,300 libraries, and 8,000 K-12 schools.

BTOP has provided a significant down-payment on President Obama’s ConnectED initiative to link all schools to high-speed Internet by 2018. Schools, libraries, and health care providers were pivotal in making this rapid expansion possible. These anchor institutions already had close ties to their communities, recognized the enormous benefits high-speed Internet affords, and possessed skilled staff to organize classes and broker learning resources.

At the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition annual conference, we released four more of the 15 case studies that detail the impact of the BTOP public computer center and sustainable broadband adoption awards. The case studies were conducted as part of an evaluation contract by independent research firm ASR Analytics. With this release a total of seven studies are available to the public. The institutions profiled in the case studies include community colleges, a historically black university, and two nonprofit organizations that work with K-12 schools, first responders, and health care providers.

The following is a snapshot of the projects featured in the reports and information on the impact they are having in their communities. All 15 ASR Analytics case studies report on five key impact areas of broadband adoption and use: Workforce and Economic Development; Education and Training; Healthcare; Quality of Life/Civic Engagement; and Digital Literacy.