Research

Over the last two years, in California and across the country, billions of public dollars have been allocated to end the digital divide. The Digital Equity LA coalition and the California Community Foundation (CCF) Digital Equity Initiative set out in this report to document what people are being asked to pay for home internet in diverse neighborhoods across Los Angeles County (CA). Pricing information was obtained directly from internet service provider (ISP) websites using residential addresses in each of the neighborhoods examined.

Colorado’s five-year plan for investing millions of federal funding to expand fast, reliable, and affordable broadband across the state. The Roadmap was developed in coordination with the Colorado Digital Government Strategic Plan to ensure all Coloradans, as well as future generations, have equitable opportunities to access the countless benefits provided by high-speed internet. CBO encourages feedback on the Broadband Roadmap and will continue to travel throughout the state talking about affordability, accessibility, and digital literacy.

INCOMPAS, the Internet and Competitive Networks Association, launched a paper that quantifies the investments tech companies have made in the global network infrastructure of the internet.

In recent years, several new options have emerged in the social media universe, many of which explicitly present themselves as alternatives to more established social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – especially by opposing free speech restrictions they say are rife at those sites. These newer sites have created a small but satisfied community of news consumers, many of whom say one of the major reasons they are there is to stay informed about current events.

This study documents the rise of competitive broadband service in Boston; describes steadily increasing City efforts to close gaps in broadband affordability, devices, and skills; characterizes the remaining gaps in these areas as defined by stakeholders and available data; and makes nearterm policy recommendations to address these gaps in light of current federal funding opportunities.

Our analysis shows affordability as a driving factor around why some households continue to remain offline, confirming that the cost of service is an essential part of increasing Internet adoption. We asked households not using the Internet from home: “At what monthly price if any, would your household buy home Internet service?” Answers to the new question showed that the mean price offline households wanted to pay was approximately $10 per month, though it’s worth noting that three in four households gave $0 or “none” as their answer. Interestingly, households citing expense as their main

According to Internet Use Survey Data, which tracks disparities around Internet adoption,  a majority – 58% – of the 24 million offline households express no interest or need to be online. There is also a large proportion who say they can’t afford home Internet service (18%).  Regardless of their stated reasons for non-use, offline households have significantly lower incomes than their online counterparts.

This is Digital Inclusion Week 2022, a time to raise awareness of solutions addressing home internet access, personal devices, and local technology training and support programs.

The results of a spring 2022 survey of 820 US undergraduate students, across four key areas: Technology Challenges and Solutions, Modality Preferences, Access to Educational Technology, and Student Success. Key findings from the research report include:

On Monday, September 26, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society Director of Research and Fellowships Dr. Revati Prasad hosted an online panel discussion, From the Ground Up: Broadband Mapping By and for Communities, on how communities and states are collecting data on local broadband availability as the Federal Communications Commission rolls out the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) program.