Labor

Telecommunications infrastructure will be built, operated, maintained, and upgraded over time by a well-trained, highly skilled, workforce of broadband industry professionals—tower climbers and technicians, fiber optic technicians and fiber splicers, RF engineers, overhead and underground utility installers, small cell technicians, trencher and heavy equipment operators, and many others.

Despite increased investment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of households in the rural United States still lack adequate access to high-speed internet. In this study, we evaluate a wireless broadband network deployed in Turney, a small, underserved rural community in northwest Missouri. In addition to collecting survey data before and after this internet intervention, we collected pre-treatment and post-treatment survey data from comparison communities to serve as a control group.

Representatives Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) and Robin Kelly (D-IL-02) introduced legislation (H.R.

There's a wave of jobs that will result from $1.2 trillion in direct government spending from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Recent legislation included big increases in federal funding for the deployment of broadband, which is increasingly critical to daily life, but unavailable in some areas. Our analysis found that thousands more skilled workers will be needed to deploy broadband and 5G funded by recent federal programs. If this work is spread over 10 years, the funding would support about 23,000 additional workers at its peak. A shorter timespan could require even more of them. We found mixed evidence on whether there's a shortage of these workers.

With trained telecommunications workers in short supply and in high demand across the country, investing in workforce development is critical over the next five years. Fortunately, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program provides funding, regulation, and guidance to create and sustain the personnel necessary to build and maintain the nation’s critical infrastructure. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allows the $42.45 billion in BEAD money to be used in workforce and job training.

Institutions that provide essential services, including education, health care, government functions, and the workforce, have a duty to make their services universally accessible. But because of the persistence of the digital divide, these institutions cannot fully integrate and modernize internet-based technologies into their services; doing so would effectively deny service to people who cannot adequately access the internet. As a result, institutions have been unable to fully leverage the benefits of technology to make their services even more effective, efficient, and innovative.

Public-private partnerships (P3s) between service providers and communities are well-established in Europe and growing in popularity across the US. The model in which a service provider desires the next-generation network but may not build, own or operate the network outright can be a great way to deliver a reliable, high-speed fiber broadband network with unlimited capacity to communities. The two standard flavors of P3s are "open:" a model in which the wholesale network is owned by a public-private entity and operates as an open-access wholesale network.

Individuals who have served prison time previously had to wait until their release to quickly learn how to use smartphones, conduct Zoom calls and other means of high-tech communication. That in turn created an extra challenge in a tech-savvy world, as employers conduct their job application processes online. Now, inmates won’t have to wait until they’re released to learn the ins and outs of today’s technology.

Unions representing millions of workers in telecommunications, tech, and media as well as most sectors of the US wrote the US Senate to strongly support Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] for the role of Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and urge swift action on her nomination. The FCC needs a fully seated commission in order to make critical decisions during a period of increased federal investment in broadband networks and digital equity initiatives.