Low-income

Access to an equal educational experience is a legal right in the U.S. With the overwhelming dependence of technology in today’s educational system, internet access should also be the legal right of every student.

The decline of local newspapers accelerated so rapidly in 2023 that analysts now believe the U.S. will have lost one-third of the newspapers it had as of 2005 by the end of next year — rather than in 2025, as originally predicted. Most communities that lose a local newspaper do not get a replacement, even online. Over the past two years, newspapers continued to vanish at an average rate of more than two per week, leaving 204 U.S. counties, or 6.4%, without any local news outlet.

The Alabama Digital Expansion Division of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) has released a draft of the state's Digital Opportunity Plan, which details Alabama's vision of a connected, interconnected future.

State policymakers face a big test—how to best spend the almost $272 million the Commerce Department allocated from its Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program as well as the funding the state receives under the Digital Equity Act. Today I want to look ahead to 2024 and talk about three challenges that all states, including Maine, will face. I also want to suggest how states can meet these challenges to ensure that this once-in-a-lifetime funding secures fast, affordable and reliable broadband Internet access for every US household. 

An analysis of data collected for the FCC's newest Broadband Map shows that Cuyahoga County’s (OH) lowest-income neighborhoods are still far more likely than others to be stuck with old, slow, home “broadband” service from AT&T. Using December 2022 information provided by AT&T, together with Census tract household income data from the American Community Survey, Connect Your Community determined that for nearly half (48%) of all its serviceable locations in Cuyahoga County tracts with median annual household incomes below $35,000, AT&T reported maximum speeds below 25 Mbps down a

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program will fail if Congress doesn’t renew the Affordable Connectivity Program that states are relying on to connect low-income Americans. National Telecommunications and Information Agency Administrator Alan Davidson explained to Congress that the BEAD Program will be 

The Federal Communications Commission has adopted final rules to prevent digital discrimination of access to broadband services based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin. The new rules establish a framework to facilitate equal access to broadband internet services by preventing digital discrimination of access.

Vice President Kamala Harris said, "One provision of our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that President Biden signed exactly two years ago directed the Federal Communications Commission to create first-of-its-kind rules to prevent digital discrimination. Today, the FCC answered our call by voting to adopt these necessary rules, taking a critical step to prohibit digital discrimination in high-speed Internet access based on income, race, ethnicity, religion, and national origin.

As Members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus, we write urging you to include $6 billion needed to replenish the highly popular and effective Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) in any government funding package, as requested by President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 emergency supplemental funding proposal. Established in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the ACP is a true bipartisan public policy success story.

Two years after President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and other agencies have distributed billions of dollars to communities to bridge the digital divide and make participation in the digital economy a reality for everyone. At NTIA, we completed funding rounds for multiple programs in the last year and are moving to the implementation phase, all the while preparing states and territories to administer their state grant programs.