Gender

[The National Telecommunications and Information Administration] just announced the amounts each state and territory will receive from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. That includes $813 million for Tennessee to build future-proof networks to connect everyone in the state. Our task is simple, but it’s monumental: we are going to bridge the digital divide. For good. But we cannot reach that goal without industry stepping up.

The Federal Communications Commission announced an important update to its Mapping Broadband Health in America platform to incorporate maternal health data, enabling policymakers, public health experts, clinicians, researchers, innovators, and other public and private stakeholders to better explore the intersection of broadband and maternal health.

Rapidly advancing technologies are further highlighting the global impact of the digital divide, which is the gap between those with reliable access to high-speed internet services and those without it. Here are five creative ways companies are trying to bridge the divide:

A vision of an internet free from harassment, hate, and misogyny might seem far-fetched, particularly if you’re a woman. But a small, growing group of activists believe the time has come to reimagine online spaces in a way that centers women’s needs rather than treating them as an afterthought. They aim to force tech companies to detoxify their platforms, once and for all and are spinning up brand-new spaces built on women-friendly principles from the start.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which includes the Digital Equity Act of 2021 (DEA), establishes a broad framework and significant funding to advance broadband connectivity and digital equity. The law recognizes key factors and populations to address when striving for digital equity. To fully realize the full benefits of digital technology for individuals, communities, and society at large additional insights are needed. The Digital Opportunities Compass is an holistic framework for broadband and digital equity planning, implementation and evaluation.

Nearly 172,000 Chicago households (over 15%) don’t have internet at home, and nearly 92,000 (roughly 8%) don’t have any device, including a computer, laptop, tablet, or smart mobile device.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has announced a Request for Comment on how companies’ data practices may impose outsized harm on marginalized or underserved communities. The ways in which firms collect, share, and use data can exacerbate existing structural inequities. 

• Online job ads may be targeted based on real or perceived demographic characteristics such as age, sex, or race – reaching certain groups while ignoring others,

This study analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered individual perceptions of Internet service providers (ISPs) and Internet importance, reliability, and status as an essential public utility (EPU). The authors found that lower-income, younger, women and racial-ethnic minority participants had lower ISP and Internet reliability perceptions. The pandemic increased the perception of the Internet as an EPU by 15% and access to in-home Information and Communication Technology was significantly related to perceptions of Internet importance and reliability.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is awarding Idaho its first “Internet for All” grants for deploying high-speed Internet networks and developing digital skills training programs under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative. Idaho is receiving $4,940,793.09 in funding to plan for the deployment and adoption of affordable, equitable, and reliable high-speed Internet throughout the state. Idaho will receive $4,376,087.09 to fund the following:

The United States is committed to making further progress on ensuring all our citizens are connected and improving both the level and the quality of telecommunications. We are working to ensure that every American has access to affordable high-speed internet, to invest in resilient infrastructure and more secure networks, and to use technology that aligns with our values.