Individuals who primarily Reside in a Rural Area

The draft New Hampshire Digital Equity Plan was created with partnership and collaboration at its core, as a joint effort between the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, the National Collaborative for Digital Equity (NCDE), and the Digital Equity Research Center at the Metropolitan New York Library Council.

The White House Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has scored four forms that will be part of the Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program. The four forms are: Application, Consolidated Budget, Digital Equity Plan Amendments, and Specific Projects. OIRA has calculated how many hours it will take to complete each form.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) awarded nearly $223 million to expand broadband internet access to Floridians, including small and rural communities. This funding includes $135 million in state funding through the Broadband Opportunity Program and $86 million in federal funds through the Multipurpose Community Facilities Program. Awards through the Broadband Opportunity Program will support 54 projects in 33 Florida counties for broadband internet expansion that will provide internet to over 27,000 unserved residential, educational, agricultural, business and community locations.

Patricia Pereira, an 80-year old woman living in Camp Seco, California, is cut off from 911 and other essential services. At the beginning of 2023, Pereira asked AT&T if landline service could be transferred from a neighboring home to hers. Instead of transferring the service, AT&T cut the copper lines dead on both properties. Pereira lives in a dead zone and barely receives cellular signals. This is happening in rural AT&T areas across the country.

It’s clear in reading the various proposed Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) rules that State Broadband Offices are following the lead of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and putting a lot of emphasis on making sure that everybody gets served with the grant funding. I’m not sure they understand the costly consequences of this emphasis. There are some passings in this country that are largely unservable.

High-speed internet is something we count on to function day to day. The service elevates the lives and livelihoods of Americans whose broadband needs have been previously unmet. The 2023 Cox Expansion Impact Survey found 86 percent of consumer respondents with recently available high-speed internet said their lives have improved. This report outlines three ways that high-speed internet enriches the lives of rural Americans:

The Mississippi Office of Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi (BEAM) released its draft State Digital Skills and Accessibility (DSA) Plan for a 30-day public comment period on January 5, 2024. The Mississippi DSA Plan outlines how BEAM will work towards ensuring broadband accessibility, affordability, digital skills training, and digital opportunities for all citizens.

Peggy Braffet and her husband think about broadband a lot. When guests show up to their pick-your-own berry farm, they sometimes expect to be able to pay with credit cards, but the Braffets' slow internet connection won't allow it.

In a far cry from the early 2000s, most US adults today say they use the internet (95%), have a smartphone (90%) or subscribe to high-speed internet at home (80%), according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted May 19 to Sept. 5, 2023. Though adoption of these technologies has surged over the past two decades, there are notable differences by age, household income and educational attainment. There are large gaps between the lowest- and highest-income Americans in whether they have a broadband subscription.

Precision agriculture involves collecting, analyzing, and taking actions based on data.