Digital Divide

Across the country, educators are finding innovative ways to integrate technology into their curricula. Students from marginalized communities often don’t have the chance to engage with technology in meaningful ways, and instead are limited to passive uses of technology that lack rigor and present little opportunity for students to further develop their digital skills. Sometimes this divide stems from a lack of access to devices, but even students who have access often lack the adequate knowledge to utilize devices, and their teachers are typically not adequately trained to embed technology

The Michigan High-Speed Internet (MIHI) Office's Digital Equity Plan was finalized in March 2024. Four months later, on July 18, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded Michigan over $20 million from the State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program for implementing this plan.

Library Wi-Fi hotspot lending programs (via the Federal Communications Commission’s E-rate program) are a complement to broadband providers and permanent connections at home—not a replacement for those connections, said Larra Clark, Deputy Director of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Public Policy and Advocacy Office and Deputy Director of the Public Library Association.

This is the third Federal Broadband Funding Report produced by NTIA, showing fiscal year (FY) 2022 data reported by 12 agencies across 70 programs making investments in broadband. This is the first Federal Broadband Funding Report to highlight trends across three fiscal years of data collected. For the first time, this report not only will release a dashboard of major findings but will also include a comprehensive view of broadband investment data reported across the last three data collections—reflecting broadband investments from FY 2020 to 2022.

As Tribes work in record numbers to close the significant digital divide across Indian Country, they need good policy that facilitates self-determined and sustainable solutions. To the contrary, the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), administered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), became, for many, yet another lesson in the dangers of investing significant sums of federal money into new Internet networks on Tribal lands without regard to local knowledge or priorities, leaving Tribal governments to spend their own time and resources to fix broken processes. This report exami

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr joined Rep John Joyce (R-PA) in Blair County, Pennsylvania, for a roundtable discussion on the Biden-Harris Administration’s $42 billion plan for extending Internet service throughout rural America. Commissioner Carr and Rep Joyce heard directly from a range of stakeholders that want to see new Internet builds in their communities—from healthcare, education, economic, local government, and other leaders to the broadband builders that are ready to get the job done. Commissioner Carr said:

In the coming months, more than $42 billion in federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds will be distributed among U.S. states and territories. Federal and state policymakers have key roles to play in supporting the efforts of the BEAD program. On the federal level, policymakers should focus on removing regulatory barriers rather than erecting new ones.

The mission of the Indiana Broadband Office (IBO) is to assist residents in need of affordable and reliable broadband connectivity. IBO recognizes that affordability is an important component of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program and that deployment without affordable options will severely limit Indiana residents’ ability to navigate the internet effectively and utilize digital services.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a photo of two little girls in the parking lot of a California Taco Bell went viral. They were doing their schoolwork on laptops in that inconvenient location because the restaurant provided free Wi-Fi, which they didn’t have at home. The girls came to symbolize the digital underclass that’s emerged since the rise of the internet.

Fixed wireless access (FWA) is often thought of as a way to connect remote areas where fiber can’t do the job. But the technology also has a place in the big city, as nonprofit DigitalC has shown. DigitalC kicked off in January an 18-month plan to construct a citywide FWA network in Cleveland.