Community Anchor Institutions

The Federal Communications Commission is committing nearly $84 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program (ECP), which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

A partnership led by the Maine Connectivity Authority is seeking to build a 530-million "middle-mile" fiber broadband network that would serve tens of thousands of residents and businesses across the state. Middle-mile infrastructure is the regional fiber optic infrastructure made up of high-capacity fiber that carries large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances and between various elements of telecommunications infrastructure. The network would encompass 131 communities, representing over 11,000 unserved residents and local businesses.

Connect Humanity is working with the city of Orangeburg (SC) and Claflin University to extend the university’s broadband out into the surrounding community at affordable rates.

Educators around the country began to engage in dialogue regarding the digital divide as they recognized the reality that many students did not have access and connectivity as once believed. So a new concept has emerged: “digital equity.” It’s an important idea, and one to which educators and education institutions should pay close attention. Educators and college leaders should build on efforts to expand digital equity and digital inclusion in education by considering the following:

At the height of the pandemic in April 2020, the City of Chicago learned that roughly 1 in 5 K-12-aged students did not have internet access at home. Schools had shifted to remote learning, and Chicago needed to act quickly to ensure that students could continue their education from home.

An ambitious new plan by the state of Colorado seeks to end the state’s digital divide once and for all — and to do so using fiber, the gold standard for the fastest internet connections. Brandy Reitter, the executive director of the Colorado Broadband Office, said she took the position because she wanted to do impactful work “that was well funded” so she could actually fix the problem. Now she’s leading the state’s plan to use $1 billion in federal money to improve internet service, not just to help those with no internet access, but those with subpar service.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded Long Beach City College, a Hispanic Serving Institution in California, $2,999,978 as part of the Connecting Minority Communities (CMC) Pilot Program.  Long Beach City College (LBCC)'s Student Technology and Resources (STAR) program will address equity gaps created by historically marginalized students' lack of access to internet broadband and technology.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded Albany State University (ASU), a Historically Black College and University in Georgia, $2,997,777 as part of the Connecting Minority Communities (CMC) Pilot Program. ASU Global is the university’s fully online college. It exists to create and offer degree and certificate programs in a fully online format that can be completed at a distance.

The Federal Communications Commission is committing nearly $183 million in new funding rounds through the Emergency Connectivity Program (ECP), which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

Sacramento and Seattle are the best cities in the US when it comes to digital and internet equity, offering more widely available and affordable internet access than other major cities in the US, according to a new analysis by the non-profit United Way of the National Capital Area (NCA). Research by the Federal Communications Commission finds that 19 million Americans – approximately 6% of the country’s population – lack access to fixed broadband service at threshold speeds.