Government Technology

Buried in the recent pandemic relief bill passed just before the end of 2020 was the DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act, a bipartisan attempt to make it easier for government agencies to set up official websites with a .gov domain, as opposed to other options such as .com or .org. If the bill works as intended, it could help combat fraud and add credibility to government websites, and proponents of the measure consider it a step in the right direction for cybersecurity.

A new report from the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society argues for more federal support of open-access, middle-mile (OAMM) networks, which “can help the nation meet its deployment and competition challenges.” By definition, an OAMM network will allow any Internet service provider (ISP) to connect to it, “on nondiscriminatory terms and conditions,” in order to provide last-mile solutions to homes and businesses.

COVID-19 forced government to leave behind its offices, schools to close their doors and citizens to isolate themselves at home. In doing so, the insidious disease more than underlined the digital haves and have-nots, as a large segment of the American population has had to grapple with the demands of telework, distance learning and accessing online services. State leaders, no matter their political affiliation, acknowledged the digital divide more than ever before in 2020, as evidenced by the sheer number of governors who talked about Internet access in their State of the State addresses.