Digital Equity/Digital Inclusion

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative addresses the Nation’s digital divide by bringing high-speed Internet availability, device affordability, and digital literacy to left-behind communities. Some of those programs and their impacts:

In the late hours of Thursday, September 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall at Keaton Beach (FL). On Friday, downgraded to a tropical storm, Helene made its way up the east coast, leaving a path of destruction through Georgia and the Carolinas.

Community networks risk failure when they attempt to emulate models from elsewhere without engaging the community in the process and making appropriate adaptations. These ‘build it and they will come’ models rarely work over the long term. This research project explored claims from residents of a low-income neighbourhood in the “North End” of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, that inadequate and unaffordable Internet connectivity limits their access to critical communication tools, resources, and information.

In July 2024, the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE) released its Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program Initial Proposal Volume II.

States are using their digital equity plans to demonstrate how successful digital inclusion efforts can advance progress toward other goals, including improvements to civic and social engagement, economic development, education, health care, and delivery of essential services.

Technology Policy Institute President Scott Wallsten believes that federal broadband programs have mostly thrown key economic principles out the window. “And a persistent digital divide is partly the result of that,” he said. Rather than just focusing on the cost of capital or the cost of laying fiber, he said broadband programs should apply economic concepts to "maximize total net benefits" for consumers and also balance trade-offs between supply, different deployment technologies and what consumers want. For example, he said a consumer could consider moving from 1 Mbps to 10 Mbps “a huge

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Under Secretary Dr. Basil Gooden announced nearly $173 million in funding to connect rural residents, farmers and business owners in the Dakotas and eight other states to reliable high-speed internet. Projects are being financed by the fifth round of the ReConnect Program.

Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) unveiled his ticket's plans to improve the lives of rural voters, as Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) looks to cut into Donald Trump's (R-FL) support. The Harris-Walz plan calls on Congress to permanently extend telemedicine coverage under Medicare, a pandemic-era benefit that helped millions access care that is set to expire at the end of 2024.

The Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, enrolled more Americans than any previous broadband affordability program in the United States. Despite that success, the ACP faced substantial criticism from conservative members of Congress who saw it as giving away taxpayer dollars to many households that don’t actually need help affording their internet bill. The question going forward is not if the government will subsidize broadband service for Americans, but how. This paper attempts to inform that debate by examining four specific critiques of the ACP: