On July 3, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel spoke at the National Association of the Deaf Conference in Chicago (IL) about the ways "digital technologies can improve the lives of people with disabilities," and about some of the work the FCC has done to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. "Two weeks from now, the FCC will vote on a new proposal to improve video programming accessibility for individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing. The FCC has standards for closed captioning that allow users to customize the font, size, color, and other display features of captions. But, as too many of you know and as we have heard from NAD, these tools are too hard to find. That is why we will vote on rules to make display settings for closed captioning more “readily accessible” for all."

Across America’s heartland, reliable, high-speed internet remains out of reach for many. In fact, more than 25 percent of the population across just Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wyoming doesn’t have access to sufficient broadband. “Lack of broadband in the heartland isn’t just a ‘heartland issue,’” says Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, a philanthropic organization with an arm focused exclusively on funding community-driven solutions to bridge the digital divide. “The effects reverberate across the country—across the globe.” Philanthropic organizations working on digital access, such as Ford Foundation, are rising to meet this challenge through community-driven, cross-sector partnerships and grants that touch everything from agriculture to infrastructure to community outreach and beyond. The Broadband Breakthrough initiative is a 17-county community engagement and broadband planning program across rural Illinois created in partnership between the University of Illinois’ “Illinois Extension” program and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, a 43-year-old nonprofit organization working to bring national access to affordable, high-performance broadband for all. Delivered electronically and by paper, the data tool analyzed the nature of rural residents’ existing broadband service and guided them through internet speed tests. “The survey lets people in the county know there’s an effort to get better broadband, and specifically asks questions of farmers and farmer-supported businesses that are big parts of our economy,” says Adrianne Furniss, executive director of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. “In their farmhouses and farm offices, fields and their communities, farmers need to overcome inadequate broadband which limits productivity and growth, and hinders their ability to connect to markets, information and each other,” she explains.

Global internet exchange operator DE-CIX hopes to connect data centers in smaller markets using a new approach that could benefit customers of the data center operator. A recent deal with Kansas City (MO) data center operator NOCIX is an example of the kinds of partnerships DE-CIX hopes to establish with the data centers. Customers of the data center operator gain direct access to more than 280 networks in New York and 150 in Dallas, according to DE-CIX. They also gain low-latency remote access to other DE-CIX exchanges, including some located overseas. This type of partnership, said DE-CIX VP Ed d'Agostino, “will enable outlying and regional data center operators to connect their customers to the heart of interconnection in the major hubs, gaining access to relevant networks as well as cloud service providers. This will help to close the connectivity gaps across the U.S.”