Schools/Universities

Arlington County, Virginia, is surveying residents and businesses to understand how they use broadband internet service and if their access can be improved. The survey is part of a $250,000 study that could inform ways to bridge the digital divide between residents with good internet connectivity and those without it, using the county’s existing fiber-optic network, dubbed ConnectArlington.

As part of his $45 billion Rebuild Illinois investment strategy, Governor JB Pritzker (D-IL) launched a statewide initiative, Connect Illinois, in August 2019 to expand broadband access across the entire state.

The Federal Communications Commission committed over $34 million in a new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program (ECP), which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Massachusetts received its first “Internet for All” grants for deploying high-speed Internet networks and developing digital skills training programs under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative.

GeoLinks took home $84.6 million of the $234.9 million it won in the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction for broadband projects in Arizona and Nevada. While its top priority is ramping up those fiber and fixed wireless builds, company President Ryan Adams said it's also keeping its eyes peeled for expansion opportunities from the Southwest to the East Coast which could help it scale over the next decade.

The Federal Communications Commission is committing over $65 million in new funding round through the Emergency Connectivity Program (ECP), which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

This summer, the mountains moved in Hoopa Valley (CA). As a wildfire burned through trees and vegetation, a thunderstorm dropped two inches of rain in one day. Meanwhile, online, residents were clamoring to Facebook to learn what had happened. Others started to email Frank, who serves as a youth coordinator with Save California Salmon and Miss Na:tini-we’, a cultural and political ambassador for the Hoopa Valley Tribe.

A group of vendors has been working on a CBRS private wireless network for a school in an underprivileged area of Sacramento, California, for a couple of years. And as a result of their trial, the Sacramento City Council recently approved $1.4 million in funding to create a permanent private 5G network for the school and two public housing communities in the city. The vendors involved in the project include Athonet, Federated Wireless, Intel, JMA Wireless, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Megh Computing, and Future Technologies Venture.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA has awarded five grants as part of the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program (CMC). These grants, totaling over $18.5 million, will expand community technology hubs, upgrade classroom technology, and increase digital literacy skills at five minority-serving institutions in California, Missouri, Louisiana, and Alabama. The CMC grants, directed by NTIA’s Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives, cover costs such as the purchase of high-speed Internet service and eligible equipment, the hiring

The Broadband Map Integrity service is a new offering is designed to help states, municipalities, schools, and other interested parties to quickly and efficiently submit challenges to the recently-released FCC maps, the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric (Fabric), that will inform the allocation of $42.5 billion in BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Deployment) grants.