Local/Municipal

Eagle (ID) is ready to light up the first phase of its long-planned, federally-funded broadband network. Residents of the northern Ada County suburb will soon be able to take advantage of free Wi-Fi in city parks as work continues on a city-wide broadband network funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act funds.

There will soon be a new way for Los Angeles residents to submit a complaint if they feel they've been discriminated against by internet companies.

San Francisco (CA) has offered jail tablets and their content at no cost to incarcerated people, part of a wave of institutions starting to decouple carceral communications from a profit motive. The free tablet program was introduced in May of 2023, a logical follow-up to San Francisco making jail phone calls free in 2020, the first county in the country to do so and the second city after New York. Before 2023, the San Francisco jails had never implemented any tablet program for all inmates.

We are writing to express our support for extending funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program, an essential program that over 23 million families rely on to access quality and affordable high-speed internet. The Affordable Connectivity Program has been a key tool in our efforts to eliminate the digital divide in America since it was created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. The fact that the Affordable Connectivity Program was enacted into law as a part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is not lost on us – it’s a program that has wide support.

Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) announced a $10 million state grant to help deliver affordable broadband to every home in the city of Cleveland. DeWine and Lt. Gov.

Cities are looking to leverage streetlights and even electric transformers to give them deeper insights into what’s happening on the ground. These technology developments come as public leaders also work to ensure individual privacy is not trampled on the road to a smart city. Many of the questions from city leaders involve how data is transported and stored, said Mike Grigsby, director of business development at Ubicquia, a smart city technology company. “The data is owned by the city,” Grigsby said.

I’m working with several small cities that were recently notified that the existing cable company plans to upgrade its network. In these cities, the cable company still operates a DOCSIS 3.0 network. The networks have download speeds a little faster than 100 Megabits per second (Mbps), and upload speeds are under 10 Mbps. These cities are currently considered to be underserved and are eligible for BEAD grants. I talked to the State Broadband Offices in several states about the issue of announced upgrades coming just in front of the final BEAD map challenges.

Internet giants Comcast and AT&T are trying to prevent Oakland from receiving $14 million to build out its capacity for high-speed internet, the latest obstacle to the city’s efforts to close longstanding gaps in online access for its residents. In objections to Oakland’s latest share of a $3.87 billion California spending package, the two companies argued to the California Public Utilities Commision (CPUC) that the neighborhoods slated for enhanced fiber-optic infrastructure already enjoy faster internet speeds. Their evidence for that assertion has been kept confidential to everyone b

Mayor Brandon Scott (D-Baltimore) announced FreeBmoreWiFi, a free, public WiFi network in the City of Baltimore, which will be implemented by the Office of Broadband and Digital Equity and funded by American Rescue Plan Act funds. The first locations that will be getting this free WiFi are Middle Branch Fitness and Wellness and the Solo Gibbs Recreation Center. The City aims to have the network up at all of Baltimore City's recreation centers by the end of 2024, with future expansion expected. "FreeBmoreWiFi is about more than internet access," says Baltimore City IT Director Todd Carter.

Baltimore's Office of Broadband and Digital Equity (BDE) established four overarching goals to advance the principles of digital equity and inclusion. Mapping, data, and analysis described in this plan guide these goals. In addition, BDE relied on the critical input of residents’ voices and experiences.