Low-income

Even before the pandemic, which largely confined most Americans to their homes for months, communities that lacked reliable high-speed internet began falling behind those that were well-connected.

Nearly 4 million households have enrolled in the Federal Communications Commission's emergency broadband benefit program since it launched in May. But as researchers have begun digging into data recently released by the FCC, they're finding that not only are the vast majority of eligible Americans still being left out of the $3.2 billion program, but there are also stark geographic differences in where people are being enrolled.

Kentucky, Louisiana and Tribal areas have the largest shares of households signing up for the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) Program subsidy. The Technology Policy Institute's (TPI) Broadband Map uses EBB data from the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to display program usage and overall progress across the country.

Millions of people signed up for the Federal Communications Commission‘s Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program since it launched in mid-May—but records show that Americans faced significant frustrations with their internet service providers amid the rollout. While hundreds of providers agreed to be part of the EBB, customers of nearly every provider say issues have cropped up along the way.

As the debate about investing in broadband infrastructure continues in Washington this month, it was heartening to see that President Joseph Biden acted to address competition in residential broadband service. Here's a quick look at what he did. On July 9, President Biden signed an Executive Order launching a "whole-of-government" effort to promote competition across the economy. The Executive Order includes 72 initiatives.

Two weeks ago, the Federal Communications Commission released data on how many households have signed up for the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB), a program created by Congress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The program offers eligible households a discount of up to $50 per month on broadband service.

In 2016, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a comprehensive reform and modernization of its Lifeline program. For the first time, the FCC included broadband as a supported service in the program, allowing support for stand-alone mobile (think cell phone) or fixed broadband Internet access service (think home broadband service delivered over a wire), as well as bundles including fixed or mobile voice and broadband. But the 2016 decision also set out to zero-out support for voice-only services.

The platform ID.me is run by a software company in Virginia, and it’s now a required part of more than 20 states’ unemployment programs. For many people, the ID.me process is simple: they use their smartphones to scan their faces and upload pictures of their government-issued identity cards. The images are checked by a facial recognition system. ID.me is meant to block scammers who are using fake or stolen identities to claim unemployment benefits, but the process is also cutting off an unknown number of people who don’t have the right technology or the right identification.

The Federal Communications Commission released a breakdown of its enrollment numbers for the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program. Overall, the FCC figures showed 3.08 million households were signed up for benefits as of June 27, with 75,880 of these on Tribal land. That figure was up from the 2.3 million the FCC touted on June 7.

Launched in June 2020, the Chicago Connected program provided a bridge to learning for more than 64,000 Chicago Public Schools students who didn’t have the connectivity or speed to access their remote lessons from home. An inspiring commitment on the part of Chicago’s philanthropy, business, government and nonprofit sectors, Chicago Connected has been replicated in cities across the country and is the national model for bridging the urban digital divide.