Research

As required by the Presidential Memorandum titled Modernizing United States Spectrum Policy and Establishing a National Spectrum Strategy, the Secretary of Commerce, through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), prepared this National Spectrum Strategy to both promote private-sector innovation and further the missions of federal departments and agencies, submitting it to the President through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Director of the Office

Leichtman Research Group found that the largest cable and wireline phone providers and fixed wireless services in the U.S.—representing about 96% of the market—acquired about 950,000 net additional broadband Internet subscribers in 3Q 2023, compared to a pro forma gain of about 865,000 subscribers in 3Q 2022. These top broadband providers now account for 113.9 million subscribers, with top cable companies having about 76.2 million broadband subscribers, top wireline phone companies having about 30.7 million subscribers, and top fixed wireless services having about 6.9 million subscribers. 

Healthcare providers (HCPs) and patients are increasingly relying on telehealth services (healthcare provision over the internet) to provide and seek care. It turns internet access disparities into a health equity concern, i.e., poor internet access can contribute to poor health. In response, two Federal Communications Commission programs in the United States—Healthcare Connect Fund and the Telecom Program—subsidize internet access for HCPs in rural or remote areas.

The Oklahoma Broadband Office (OBO) released the state's draft Digital Equity Plan with one goal in mind: to fulfill Oklahoma's Digital Promise. That promise, more specifically, is to ensure all Oklahomans can access and use affordable internet to advance health care, education, business, agriculture, public safety, and community development.

A new category of extreme power users who consume more than 5 Terabytes (TB) per month of broadband data has been identified in the 3Q 2023 OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) report. Extreme power users consume six times more data for online gaming than do users of 1 TB or less per month; however, they consume the least amount of social media data when compared to users in other high-usage categories categories.

Regardless of a funder’s mission, addressing the pressing concerns of digital access touches everything we do as a society. With great interest from funders with diverse missions, The Patterson Foundation (TPF) launched a series of eight funder workshops cohosted with The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. This report shares our learnings, takeaways, and resources from each Funder Workshop. Targeting data from funder workshop participation in the three essential elements of digital access: connectivity, devices, and a combination of skills, support, and literacy allowed us to understand how

Despite increased reliance on access to high-capacity and reliable broadband Internet for everyday activities, disparities in fixed broadband availability persist. States’ broadband programs are part of the effort to close the infrastructure gap, which has been linked to geographic, demographic, socio-economic, market, and policy factors. However, the pandemic is prompting a shift in broadband policy—with the concept of “access” being expanded to address both disparities in coverage and digital equity concerns.

This paper seeks to address a gap in mobile communication scholarship by contributing insights from a qualitative study of library patrons who checked out mobile hotspots from the Boston Public Library in Massachusetts. The findings show that although mobile hotspots provided many benefits for public library patrons in general, these devices facilitated mobile communication with a different sense of urgency for six people experiencing homelessness who also happened to be in romantic relationships.

T-Mobile is now the carrier with the largest number of prepaid customers, surpassing Verizon. Based on its Q3 2023 earnings reports, T-Mobile had 21,595,000 customers and Verizon had 21,420,000. Wave7 Research flagged the change in a report distributed to subscribers. Before the third quarter, Verizon was the biggest US prepaid carrier, but that title was relatively new. The operator bought TracFone Wireless from América Móvil in 2021, instantly giving it more than 20 million prepaid customers, but it’s been steadily losing customers ever since. 

Americans rank the importance of regulating AI below government shutdowns, health care, gun reform, immigration and the war between Israel and Hamas, according to