NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association

Rural Americans encounter substantial healthcare disparities when compared to urban counterparts, including provider shortages, less access to specialists, and higher mortality risks from various chronic and acute conditions. While 13.8% of the U.S. population lives in rural areas, rural regions comprise two-thirds of healthcare provider shortage areas. Accordingly, broadband-enabled telehealth that mitigates barriers to healthcare access can be a transformative solution for patients and physicians in rural areas.

We are grateful that the Supreme Court has granted certiorari and will review the Fifth Circuit’s finding that the universal service contribution mechanism is unconstitutional as currently structured.

Collecting data and opinions from our members is one of the best tools we have to really tell the story of rural America to policymakers and stakeholders in Washington, D.C. You may have seen that NTCA released the results of a member survey conducted to show how the potential disruption of Universal Service Fund (USF) support could affect rural consumers, broadband investment in rural America and the viability of existing rural broadband networks.

One in five U.S. students attends K-12 school in a rural district. The reduced economies of scale in those schools can result in limited funding, barriers to on-going professional training for teachers and other factors that implicate trickle-down impacts on student experiences. However, many schools are developing creative solutions to address their needs, relying on technology and innovative solutions.

During the opening of the 2024 RTIME, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo encouraged small, community-based broadband providers to pursue Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program grants, telling NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield in a recorded fireside chat that the agency will continue to work to help address administrative burdens, supply chain constraints and workforce challenges.

Congress has recently committed tens of billions of dollars to broadband deployment, but taxing broadband grants dramatically reduces their impact.

Working parents in rural and urban America struggle daily to ensure they have adequate care for their little ones and certainly safe care at an affordable price. Here at NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, we have spent countless hours talking about workforce issues that impact broadband deployment in rural America. During our annual Women in Telecom Fly-In to Washington, D.C.,  the discussion turned to what could be done to encourage more women to enter the rural broadband space as an attractive career path.

NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association and ACA Connects—America’s Communications Association strongly support the proposal to amend a “program comment” issued by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) in 2017. Recognizing that telecommunications undertakings “typically [do] not result in adverse effects to historic properties,” in 2017 the ACHP adopted a streamlined process for communications providers’ compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act for the installation of certain categories of wireline and wireless communications infrastructure on federal

This survey asked about technologies used to provide broadband service in members’ historical incumbent and competitive service areas, broadband availability and subscription rates, anchor institutions, fiber deployment and supply chain considerations, competition, internet backbone and middle mile connections, and video service. This survey found that:

Two areas in the draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet: