Fast Company
Net neutrality déjà vu: The fight to regulate broadband providers just won’t die
In February of 2017, Tom Rutledge, then-CEO of Charter, was asked how changes in Washington were about to impact the company.
Millions of Americans are about to lose internet access, and Congress is to blame
The Affordable Connectivity Program is about to run out—and Congress is watching it happen. When the ACP was created in 2021 as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the $14.2 billion Congress allocated was expected to last five years. But demand for the benefit was so high that in January the Federal Communications Commission announced the program would be winding down at the end of April, after just three years.
This is how we can use AI to empower rural America
AI has become a market imperative for leading American businesses. However, current AI knowledge is largely centered around cities. Meanwhile, in rural America, income inequality has never been higher—nor has the digital divide been more deeply felt.
States will soon dole out federal funding for broadband internet. Not every state is ready for the task
The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program differs from previous federal broadband programs because it promised to allocate the funding to individual states and allow them to figure out the best way to distribute the funds. Once states receive their broadband funding, they still have to set up a mechanism to request proposals from internet service providers, grade the proposals that come in, and o
How a quiet agreement between John Deere and rural farmers could torpedo right-to-repair laws (Fast Company)
Submitted by dclay@benton.org on Tue, 02/28/2023 - 10:50Former employees say Twitter is stuck in a recurring code loop nightmare—and things might only get worse (Fast Company)
Submitted by benton on Fri, 02/10/2023 - 06:43The bizarre, grotesque images seen in ads at the end of an article aren’t an accident but part of the internet’s native language (Fast Company)
Submitted by benton on Sat, 02/04/2023 - 15:09Senate Democrats and Biden need to stand up to homophobic attacks on FCC nominee Gigi Sohn
Gigi Sohn is gay. She’s also a highly qualified nominee for the Federal Communications Commission with decades of experience as a public interest advocate working on issues of affordable broadband access, net neutrality, and closing the digital divide.
What is community broadband and why it matters
The digital divide needs to be closed for society to grow, but without the high demand to ensure a return on investment, many smaller, less fortunate communities risk falling behind in a widening gap. The longer larger companies wait to prioritize these regions, the further isolated the people who live there may become from the rapidly digitizing future. Who will take ownership to bring those communities across the digital divide?