Affordability/Cost/Price

The Biden Administration’s goals of restoring a functional federal government, driving economic recovery, and “building back better” lend themselves to a new strategy for universalizing broadband, with a three-pronged approach to directly address each of the barriers I have described that have stalled universal access. First, any significant plan for investing in infrastructure must include sufficient funding in the form of grants and loans for both initial capital investment and ongoing operations and maintenance of universal, future-proofed broadband networks. Second, the Administration s

All 32 Democratic members of the House Commerce Committee introduced the Leading Infrastructure For Tomorrow’s America Act, or LIFT America Act. The sweeping legislation will modernize the nation’s infrastructure, rebuild the economy, combat climate change, and protect public health and the environment. The legislation invests more than $312 billion in clean energy, energy efficiency, drinking water, broadband, and health care infrastructure. Support for Expansion of Broadband Internet Access Nationwide:

March 12, we are filing our application to participate in the Federal Communications Commission’s Emergency Broadband Benefit program so we can offer low-income customers additional options for discounted broadband services. We appreciate the Commission’s efforts to move swiftly to implement this program and we look forward to its official launch date. While the EBB will help address the immediate broadband connectivity needs of many low-income Americans, we will continue to work with Congress and others to identify permanent and sustainable funding solutions.

The latest COVID-19 relief package includes over $7 billion to expand E-rate to better tackle students’ at-home internet needs. But with the dollars doled out so far into the crisis and the end of the school year fast approaching, expectations for how the additional funding will be spent have shifted among school officials and advocates from getting quick fixes, like mobile hotspots, to more long-term projects that will ensure that schools can sustain the progress they’ve made to become more digital-learning friendly.

Thirty House and Senate Democrats unveiled a new $94 billion proposal to make broadband Internet access more accessible and affordable nationwide, aiming to remedy some of the digital inequalities that have kept millions of Americans offline during the coronavirus pandemic. The new effort, chiefly authored by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), marks one of the most expensive, ambitious broadband packages proposed in recent years.

Federal and state officials said Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed grave disparities in education and the digital divide, posing challenges at all levels of government. “The laptops that many of our schools are providing, if you aren’t able to connect that somewhere, you still have a problem,” said Rep Alma Adams (D-NC), a member of the House Education and Labor Committee.

On March 10, the US House of Representatives passed the American Rescue Plan, a coronavirus relief package that includes more than $7 billion in funding for the E-Rate program to support emergency broadband connectivity and devices for schools and libraries and their students, staff, and patrons.

A proposal to move the decisions about rural investment from Washington policymakers to individual rural Americans. If we change the locus of decisionmaking, the power will shift from lobbying and campaign contributions to service and consumer spending. Such a shift would spur rural investment and would also prevent most rural areas from being locked into one technology or one service provider. The following is an updated legislative or regulatory proposal for a new Section 254.

According to a new Morning Consult poll, 27 percent of Black, Hispanic and other non-white adults who make less than $50,000 annually said they have missed at least one internet bill payment since January 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak started spreading in the United States, compared to 16 percent of lower-income white adults.

Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and Amina Fazlullah, director of equity policy at Common Sense Media, describe what you need to know about the digital divide, its impact throughout the pandemic, and where we might go from here.