Libraries

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The Federal Communications Commission adopted a proposal seeking comment on steps to encourage greater participation by eligible Tribal applicants in the E-Rate program, which provides high-speed internet to schools and libraries.

The Federal Communications Commission committed over $24 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

The Federal Communications Commission recently released a “pre-production” draft of its new National Broadband Map in an effort to provide more precise details about where internet service does and does not exist in individual locations across the US. While much attention has been paid to how the map represents broadband service for individual households, there is much less understanding among the general public with regards to how the map represents individual community anchor institutions, such as public schools, libraries, and hospitals.

As of February 2023, all states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have received their digital equity planning grants from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). At the Office of Educational Technology (OET), our priority is to support states as they include the voices, needs, and assets of the education community in their digital equity plans. Therefore, in 2022, OET launched the Digital Equity Education Roundtables Initiative and published Advancing Digital Equity for All, which identifies barriers faced by learners in adopting reliable, high-speed

It was worth the wait. The third round of the US Department of Agriculture's ReConnect Loan and Grant Program closed in 2022, after awarding $759 million in rural broadband grants and loans to 49 deployers, mostly small local exchange carriers (LECs). The average cost of passing each home, farm, other business, or school was just over $4,500, compared to $4,100 in 2019 and almost $6,000 in 2020. All awardees in this round, and almost all in previous rounds, told USDA they were deploying fiber to the premises.

Senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA) reintroduced their "Protecting Community Television Act" (S 340 and HB 907) This legislation would undo a Trump-era rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission and ensure that public, educational, and government (PEG) channels have the resources they need to keep producing content for their viewers.

The American Library Association and the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition spoke with the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Data Task Force staff and FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s advisor on Feb. 6, 2023 about including community anchor institutions (CAIs) on the FCC’s National Broadband Map. The groups expressed concerns about the current treatment of libraries and said CAIs that purchase mass-market broadband service should be included on the map.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell released a map of priority locations where Los Angeles County will build low-cost internet for households in the Second District. Supervisor Mitchell made the announcement in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Internal Services Department (ISD), which is Los Angeles County’s lead on digital equity, during a free laptop giveaway event at the Willowbrook Library.

The Federal Communications Commission committed over $30 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country. These funding commitments support applications from all three application windows, benefiting approximately 75,000 students across the country, including students in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Nevada—and will fund applications from all three application windows that will support over 200 schools, 15 libraries, and 1 consortium.