C|Net

While cellphones, and now modern smartphones, have brought new ways to access information to more people than ever, there are still many left behind. Martin Cooper, who led the team at Motorola and is credited as the father of the cellphone, estimates that 40% of the students in this country don't have access to broadband wireless. "Just imagine what that means over the long term," he said.

When Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and lawmakers in the Mississippi legislature got $1.2 billion in federal money from the first stimulus bill in March, they decided to do something different.

Some states are starting to move with more urgency to solve the broadband gap. It's a problem that affects millions of Americans and is particularly urgent in light of a pandemic that has forced most interactions, from classes to weddings, to go online. While the federal government works to allocate $20 billion on top of billions of dollars in funding already earmarked for unserved communities, there remains a lack of understanding of where the problems lie.

The faulty Federal Communications Commission national broadband map has essentially made millions of Americans without fast internet "invisible," as Microsoft put it, and unless the data improve, they're likely to remain so. But there's reason to be hopeful. Thanks to $65 million in funding from Congress in Dec, the FCC now will require internet service providers to share more detailed data, giving a better picture of what areas are unserved by broadband.

Appalachia represents a key test for President Joe Biden's $20 billion plan to get broadband access to communities that don't have it. President Biden, who said during his campaign that rebuilding the middle class in America is the "moral obligation of our time," faces a myriad of challenges in closing the gap, from actually laying down fiber-optic lines to educating consumers and ensuring that prices are affordable. In 127 of Appalachia's 420 counties, less than 75% of households had a connected device.

President Joe Biden's presence in the Oval Office over the next four years will have a major influence on the tech sector, including infrastructure policy on broadband deployment and national security issues involving Chinese tech companies. The president and his team will also play a role in how to handle the growth and influence of social media giants.

An old battle over who governs the internet will likely reignite as Democrats take control of the Federal Communications Commission following the inauguration of Joe Biden. Reinstating Obama-era net neutrality rules thrown out under the Trump administration will likely be a top priority for the agency, experts say. At stake in this battle is who, if anyone, will police the internet to ensure that broadband companies aren't abusing their power as gatekeepers. Supporters of net neutrality say rules are necessary to ensure broadband companies aren't abusing their power as gatekeepers.