We are writing to urge [Congressional leadership] to extend funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides families with financial assistance for broadband access, to help bridge the digital divide. Congress has a role in ensuring that high-speed and reliable broadband is accessible to every household, nationwide. We urge you to include full funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) in the upcoming government appropriations bill to ensure that households can access the broadband they desperately need. We cannot afford to let millions of Americans lose access to broadband. If funding for ACP is not extended, it would not only put the program’s success at risk, but also impede the progress of other federal broadband investments and initiatives. Families and businesses across the country need broadband access, and ACP has become a vital tool in securing this access. It plays a critical role in connecting households, while also promoting digital literacy, device distribution, technical support, and online services training, resulting in its high enrollment and strong bipartisan support.

In May 2021, the Federal Communications Commission launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) to help Americans stay connected to reliable Internet service during the COVID pandemic. Since evolving into the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), the program has connected nearly 20 million households nationwide. But despite the program’s success, millions remain unconnected because cost is not the only barrier to getting online. Additional barriers include access to devices, digital literacy skills, and ongoing technical support. To address these obstacles, organizations like Human-I-T are playing a crucial role. Human-I-T is deeply embedded in its Detroit, Michigan, community. Over the past few years, it has worked with partners to distribute 17,400 devices and connect nearly 2,100 households in Motor City. In June 2023, Human-I-T opened the first-in-the-nation digital equity retail location in Detroit – the Human-I-T on 7 Mile Road. This true digital equity hub provides a one-stop shop for all things digital adoption and offers low-cost devices, digital literacy training, tech support, and assistance with signing up for programs like ACP. This “hub” approach is groundbreaking and helps connect the unconnected to America’s Excellent Internet. Human-I-T on 7 Mile Road is a true innovation, bringing digital equity to retail and offering a blueprint for other digital navigator and digital equity organizations. For more resources on digital adoption, visit Network:On’s Connect20 toolkit.

The Federal Communications Commission published its first “illustrative run” of what the offers might be to broadband providers who elect extended subsidies in exchange for agreeing to bring 100/20 broadband to every location in their “study area.” With this illustrative run document, it now appears that if all the ISPs accept the FCC’s offer, 1.3 million locations would be ineligible for BEAD funding because the FCC would have an enforceable commitment from the ISP to bring service to that location.

At Mountain Connect, a panel discussed some of the pros and cons of open access networks. These networks are deployed by one company and then leased to multiple internet service providers, which can then offer broadband service to end customers. Jack Waters, CEO of Intrepid Fiber Networks, said open access networks give consumers a choice of providers. “The idea of choice is incredibly powerful,” he said. “It’s not something you ever got in telecom.” He also said that building open access networks can make things less disruptive for communities. They don’t have to endure multiple companies digging up streets to deploy fiber. They’ll just have to suffer the disruption once, and then multiple providers can use the same infrastructure. From the perspective of the service providers that lease an open access network, their margins are not as high. But neither are their risks. Warren Woodward, director of Broadband at XMission Internet, a broadband provider based in Salt Lake City, Utah, said his company uses fiber infrastructure built by Utopia Fiber. But he cautioned that as more service providers lease the network, XMission’s revenues go down. He said having 2-5 providers for a small city “is probably all you need.” Too many service providers can also make it too easy for customers to constantly switch providers.

The Ocean State has long supported expanding broadband access, adoption and application for its residents. Capitalizing on funding from the COVID-19 pandemic, Rhode Island established programs to keep kids in school, enable aging residents to take advantage of online resources, and bolster state opportunities in tech. “During the pandemic, households had increased reliance on broadband connections as access became essential for employment, education and daily activities,” said Governor Dan McKee (D-RI). Now, with Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act broadband deployment and digital equity funding coming down the pike, Rhode Island has already articulated how it plans to achieve universal broadband.

After an apparent lull, the effort to have broadband access across the city of Holland (MI) looks to be back on the fast track. The Holland City Council unanimously approved the authorization of selling up to $23 million in unlimited tax general obligation bonds to fund the expansion of the Holland BPW’s broadband Internet transport services. The vote comes a year after voters approved the issuance of up to $30 million over 25 years for this initiative. According to Mayor Nathan Bocks, the financial effect on property owners won’t be immediately evident.

A $10.3 million public-private partnership between Chattooga County (GA) and fiber provider Windstream will provide broadband access to 3,400 addresses in the county. Key communities covered by the agreement, which will feature 320 miles of fiber cable, are Summerville, Trion, Lyerly, and Menlo. The partnership includes $3.1 million from the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Program, which is part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Windstream will invest $7.2 million and cover cost overruns. Work on the project is expected to be completed in 2024.

The White House convened a roundtable with civil society leaders, researchers, and policymakers on how the data broker industry monetizes personal information and actions the Biden Administration is taking to address potential harms to American consumers. The session was hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Economic Council, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice. The CFPB plans to propose rules to ensure all data companies comply with the law and prevent brokers from selling certain data, limit the disclosure of sensitive “credit header” contact information, and give consumers the right to obtain data about themselves from brokers and dispute inaccuracies. Administration officials pledged to continue using their authorities to subject data brokers to greater regulation and oversight, and to curb the harms they cause. Participants shared stories, insights, and concerns about the harms and risks that data brokers’ practices create for everyday Americans. Issues raised include the surreptitious collection, use and sale of detailed sensitive data; data-driven scoring that limits access to housing and economic opportunities for Black and brown communities; predatory scams targeting individuals with cognitive vulnerabilities; increased risks to personal safety, including gender-based violence; and insufficient oversight of brokers under existing law.

When Microsoft unveiled an AI-powered version of Bing in February 2023, the company said it could add $2 billion of revenue if the revamped search engine could pry away even a single point of market share from Google. Six months later, it looks as if even 1 percentage point could be a tough target, with some new data showing Bing’s place in search has barely budged—partly because of how Microsoft handled its high-profile rollout. In July 2023, Bing had three percent market share worldwide, according to analytics firm StatCounter. That is the same share it had in January 2023, the month before the launch of the new Bing. Another report, from analytics firm Similarweb, shows Bing had around one percent of Google’s monthly visitors in July 2023, around the same it had in January 2023. Microsoft is calling the new Bing a success. It disputed outside data, saying third-party data companies aren’t measuring all the people who are going directly to Bing’s chat page. A chat interface is an unusual way for people to try to find information online, said Daniel Tunkelang, a search consultant who has worked with Google and LinkedIn, now owned by Microsoft. The new Bing is “cute, but not a game changer,” he said.

Digital literacy is widely seen as an essential skill. But Americans’ understanding of digital topics varies notably depending on the subject. For example, majorities of US adults know what cookies on websites do and can identify a secure password. Far fewer can recognize an example of two-factor authentication – a cybersecurity practice that makes signing into online accounts more secure. Overall, Americans answer a median of five out of nine questions correctly on a digital knowledge survey that Pew Research Center conducted among 5,101 US adults from May 15 to May 21, 2023. The questions span a range of topics, including cybersecurity practices, facts about major technology companies, artificial intelligence and federal online privacy laws. Concerning cybersecurity, 87% of U.S adults can correctly identify which password – out of four choices – is the most secure option; 67% know that the purpose of cookies is to track visits and activity on a website; and 48% can correctly identify an example of two-factor authentication from a series of pictures. Concerning artificial intelligence, 42% know a deepfake is a seemingly real image, video or audio of something that didn’t occur; and 32% know large language models, such as ChatGPT, produce answers based on word patterns and relationships they previously learned from text pulled from the internet. Concerning Big Tech, 80% know Elon Musk was running Tesla and Twitter in April 2023; 77% know Facebook changed its company name to Meta.