Getting Connected: How Wide Is the Digital Divide?

North Carolina has about 400,000 homes and businesses either not served by high-speed Internet or with woefully inadequate service. North Carolina, like every state and U.S. territory, is in the throes of getting a clearer understanding—than perhaps ever before—of just how wide their digital divides are. They have organized state broadband offices, generally within technology agencies, to count, quantify and analyze the depth of the problem. States have drafted broadband equity strategies that take into consideration that not everyone’s challenges to having high-speed Internet in their home are the same, and therefore the state’s approach to expanding this public utility will require a range of ideas. This national effort to expand broadband access is part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act thats being used to jump-start a national network of high-speed electric vehicle charging, modernize fleets of trains and buses, and invest some $65 billion into broadband.