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The ongoing Farm Bill negotiations may mean linking millions of Americans to the 21st-century economy and taking a step toward the broader dream of high-tech agriculture. Since the last Farm Bill was passed in 2018, the federal government has spent billions to try to bring high-speed internet to the nearly 12 million rural households that don’t have it.

A bipartisan effort to push the Federal Communications Commission to expand internet access to rural areas will finally get a Senate hearing, two years after the bill was first introduced. The Reforming Broadband Connectivity Act has support in both the House and Senate and will get its day in the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday, May 11th, 2023. The bill — introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in the Senate and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) in the House — orders the FCC to determine ho

5G coverage has expanded across the US, fueling personal and commercial applications. But as 5G spreads — with roughly 62 percent of Americans able to receive high-speed coverage at home — rising demand, lack of infrastructure, and a political impasse are posing roadblocks to pushing it further. Approximately 206.4 million Americans can receive high-speed 5G coverage at home, according to data by Broadband Now, an independent broadband availability website.

Rapidly advancing technologies are further highlighting the global impact of the digital divide, which is the gap between those with reliable access to high-speed internet services and those without it. Here are five creative ways companies are trying to bridge the divide:

Due to a shortfall in federal funding for a critical national security program under the Secure and Trusted Communications Act — commonly known as “rip and replace” — US telecommunications networks remain riddled with insecure equipment manufactured by companies beholden to the government of China that can do everything from capture Americans’ data to disrupt critical communications at US Strategic Command. The potential consequences of the widespread infiltration of U.S. networks by Chinese state-connected companies Huawei Technologies Ltd.

Twenty-two LGBTQ advocacy organizations are urging Congress to confirm the nomination of Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to the Federal Communications Commission, condemning attacks on her identity that have forced her nomination to languish for more than a year. In a letter to Senate leadership, groups including the LGBTQ Victory Fund and the National LGBTQ Task Force wrote that it is “past time” for Sohn, who was first nominated in October 2021, to join the FCC and “use her tremendous qualifications for the betterment of ou