Grace Tepper's blog

Achieving Digital Equity in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Grace Tepper — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 16:40:00 +0000

Friday, April 19, 2024

Weekly Digest

Achieving Digital Equity in the U.S. Virgin Islands

You’re reading the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society’s Weekly Digest, a recap of the biggest (or most overlooked) broadband stories of the week. The digest is delivered via e-mail each Friday.

Round-Up for the Week of April 15-19, 2024

Tepper

The U.S. Virgin Islands' Next Generation Network (viNGN) released the draft U.S. Virgin Islands Digital Equity Plan (USVIDEP) for public comment. Being disconnected from a connected world is not new to the U.S. Virgin Islands. The USVIDEP presents an ambitious approach to how the Territory can become "digitally resilient" and fully participate in this digital age through intentional investments in affordable, reliable internet; devices; opportunities to develop digital skills and access technical support; inclusive, online territorial resources; and how to be safe online. Public comment on USVIDEP will be accepted by viNGN until April 27, 2024.

The USVI's Vision for Digital Equity

The vision of the USVIDEP is to create a Territory that is digitally resilient. One where Virgin Islanders have access to the same range of digital resources as Mainlanders, without having to leave the Islands to “experience the internet.” To achieve this ambitious vision, the USVIDEP strives to ensure that all Virgin Islanders have affordable, high-speed internet—both in their homes and at the places where they gather; and the digital tools, devices, resources, and cyber protection to fully participate in an evolving digital world.

Digital equity and inclusion for the Virgin Islands would mean that all Virgin Islanders do not have to worry about whether their internet is fast enough or whether they can afford the internet subscription that best fits their family’s needs. It would mean that all Virgin Islanders could afford to own the devices that would help them meet their educational, health, and workforce goals, as well as their aspirations for a better quality of life. It would mean that all Virgin Islanders felt comfortable using the internet for their basic needs like banking and talking with a doctor and could even incorporate the internet into how they farm, celebrate their culture, and preserve their environment.

Confronting the socioeconomic digital divide, which is the direct product of generations of systematic exploitation, extraction, and disenfranchisement of Virgin Islanders, is central to the USVIDEP’s vision. Successful achievement would mean that the Territory meets and actively practices the three pillars of digital inclusion and has fostered a digital economy that will help to shift the Territory’s reliance on tourism. The latter is crucial, not only to the sustainability of digital equity and inclusion initiatives in the U.S. Virgin Islands, but also for meeting the Territory’s formidable workforce needs and development efforts for building a knowledge-based workforce and economy. The creation of a new digital economy would entice current residents to remain in the Territory and would attract the Virgin Islands Diaspora, who migrated to the U.S. Mainland in search of better economic prospects, to return home for comparable job opportunities.

Covered Populations and Barriers to Digital Equity

By the Digital Equity Act’s definitions, all Virgin Islanders belong to one covered population and 71 percent of Virgin Islanders belong to at least two. Barriers are organized by the five components of digital equity as defined in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program and have been exacerbated by the fact that the Territory was still in a state of recovery post-Hurricanes Irma and Maria before the COVID-19 pandemic. Together these barriers directly impact the Territory’s ability to meet economic and workforce development goals, improve educational and health outcomes, promote civic and social engagement, and deliver other essential services.

Barriers Faced by All Covered Populations

The lack of affordable high-speed broadband internet in homes and the absence of community centers, which would allow more Virgin Islanders access to the internet they may not have in their homes, have severely impacted the availability of affordable fixed and wireless broadband technology in the Territory. The cost of a home internet subscription is a challenge for many a Virgin Islander, as are slow internet speeds compounded by few internet service provider (ISP) options, unreliable infrastructure, mountainous geography, and inclement weather which can cause long-lasting service outages for large parts to the Territory at any given time.

Low access to and usage of devices of productivity—i.e., laptops and desktop computers—has limited the availability and affordability of consumer devices and technical support for those devices in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A lack of (authorized) device retailers on-island, repair and maintenance services, poor range of device options, device shortages, higher device costs compared to the mainland U.S., and poor knowledge/skills on how to set up new devices, or who to contact when in need of
technical support has further compounded this issue.

Unorganized, difficult-to-navigate, and siloed online government websites, not all of which are inclusive of non-English speakers or people with disabilities have restricted the online accessibility and inclusivity of public resources and services. A lack of local information technology (IT) personnel and expertise to assist government agencies with developing inclusive websites, or assisting the public with navigating online public services, persists as a barrier to full access and inclusivity.

The absence of digital programs and initiatives for the various demographics of Virgin Islanders on digital literacy and skills is the single biggest challenge to improving the digital skills (literacy) of the Virgin Islanders. A lack of trained staff to facilitate such trainings, tutors to support online course offerings, and understanding of the value of such programs makes introducing digital skills programming a more difficult, but not impossible, endeavor in the Territory when compared to other parts of the U.S.

Lastly, many Virgin Islanders do not know how to, or understand the importance of, protecting themselves online which prevents them from using measures to secure their online privacy. A lack of experience with identifying phishing and scams, leading to an increased risk of falling victim to these fraudulent practices, is an issue in the Islands and the newly formed Virgin Islands Cybersecurity Advisory Council has a big task ahead to bring the Territory up to speed.

Barriers Faced by Specific Covered Populations

In addition to the cross-cutting barriers to digital equity faced by all Virgin Islanders, community listening sessions and key informant interviews revealed several added burdens for specific covered populations:

People living with disabilities require access to steady, reliable electricity and internet to power assistive devices, most of which come with higher costs and there may not be a full range of options in the Territory.
Older adults need age-appropriate digital literacy and skills training, a better understanding of online scams/fraudulent practices that target their demographic, and assistance with overcoming generational fears of technology.
Those impacted by the justice system need large-screen devices to take classes—e.g., a high school equivalency diploma. Those in re-entry programs need one-on-one support (like tutors or case managers) with online trainings and organizations running re-entry programs need funding to procure/offer online courses to those impacted (like nationally certified trade courses).
People with language barriers in the Territory lack language-inclusive device support, digital skills training, and online public resources, especially if they speak Haitian or Dominican Creole.
Lastly, due to their age, many of the Territory’s veterans require one-on-one, in-person support to help navigate online courses or access telehealth resources.

Implementation Strategy and Objectives

The USVIDEP acknowledges that the anticipated digital equity funding for the Territory will not be sufficient to reach all Virgin Islanders with this ambitious Plan. The USVIDEP also identifies other federal funding opportunities that may be leveraged towards achieving the Territory’s vision of digital equity, as well as public-private partnerships to continue the work after federal funds have been expended. Ultimately, the USVIDEP focuses on investing in the following strategies to break down the barriers to access, affordability, and adoption faced by covered populations across the Territory:

Strategy 1: Focus on addressing internet affordability in the Territory

The Territory must focus its attention on strategies and initiatives that can improve the affordability of high-speed broadband internet as high monthly subscription costs remain a significant barrier for most Virgin Islanders. These will include:

Ramping up enrollment of eligible households across the Territory in the ACP to increase home broadband adoption through targeted outreach, like to University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) students, more than half of which are federal Pell Grant recipients and, thus, eligible to receive the federal discount.
Expanding access to free high-speed internet via ARPA-funded community WiFi hotspots across the Territory.
Providing free one-year, high-speed home internet subscriptions to Virgin Islanders who successfully complete digital skills training(s) with proven community partners like UVI Center for Excellence in Leadership & Learning (CELL). By using a Learn2Earn model, Virgin Islanders across all eight covered populations will not only be able to learn new marketable skills but will also be able to earn free home internet subscriptions.
Exploring best practices and other policy solutions, programs, and pilots that could provide support to households if ACP is not funded beyond 2024.

Strategy 2: Offer a robust range of affordable devices to Virgin Islanders

Given Virgin Islanders' low access to, and usages of, affordable devices of productivity; as well as the lack of (authorized) device retailers and on-island technical support, the Territory must ensure that a robust range of devices are accessible and affordable within the Territory from medical and educational to large-screen devices of productivity. These will include:

Distributing free or low-cost computer devices that meet users’ needs to Virgin Islanders who successfully complete digital skills training(s) with proven community partners. By using a Learn2Earn model, Virgin Islanders across all eight covered populations will not only be able to learn new marketable skills but will also be able to earn free or low-cost computer devices.
Partnering with proven community-led device refurbishing programs on the Mainland to train organizations locally on how to set up, run, and sustain a device refurbishment ecosystem in the U.S. Virgin Islands including device programs for low-income families.
Collaborating with UVI CELL to offer (or create) an IT support certification and incentive program to build a cadre of IT professionals who can provide community IT support services.
Partner with proven community partners, like AARP-VI and older adult housing communities, to offer basic computer device training and who to contact when in need of technical support.

Strategy 3: Introduce Learn2Earn digital skills programs across the Territory

Learn2Earn has been a successful model for conducting digital skills programs across the U.S. by providing an incentive for enrolling, attending, and successfully passing multi-day courses. In a Learn2Earn model, Virgin Islanders across all eight covered populations will not only be able to learn new marketable skills but will also be able to earn free home-internet subscriptions and/or devices upon successful completion of the course.

Courses can range from how to monitor glucose levels at home for older adults to how to set up an online marketplace for small local business owners. By investing in this strategy, the USVIDEP should have a direct impact on several of Vision 2040’s “aspirational goals” including an increased focus on healthcare and health sciences (Goal 3) and support for entrepreneurs to scale their businesses (Goal 4).

Strategy 4: Launch territory-wide education and information campaigns

In the hierarchy of Virgin Islanders’ online concerns, online security and privacy have been among the lowest on the list. In fact, only one of the more than 50 individuals who participated in any of the six community listening sessions and digital equity workshops expressed concern about data privacy or the ability of Virgin Islanders to identify false/fake information online.

This does not mean that Virgin Islanders do not want or need support on how they stay safe while being online. For example, in 2018, the V.I. Water and Power Authority (WAPA) fell victim to an email scam when it authorized “two wire transfers—totaling more than $2 million—to an offshore account;” and in 2017 the V.I. Police Department (VIPD) had a “personal data breach involving police-maintained information.”

The Territory will develop and launch an inclusive, mass media campaign for Virgin Islanders about online scams, phishing, and other security threats. The campaign will use various media—including public service announcements (PSAs), digital ads, radio and TV spots, flyers, and guest spots on local programming—to engage and inform the community around these issues.

Strategy 5: Leverage and create new partnerships

The Territory has a wealth of proven partners that are trusted by the community to deliver and support a range of services. Using digital equity funding, the Territory’s DE Team will design a grant opportunity whereby these community partners can apply to receive funding for programs that directly serve the Territory’s covered populations. These organizations and programs funded would contribute towards achieving the USVIDEP’s key performance indicators (KPIs) outlined in Section 2.3: Measurable Objectives.

Additionally, there are several areas of focus for outreach and partnership development that will be prioritized over the next year that were identified but not fully explored during this planning process. These areas and partners include:

School Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) clubs like the Rays STEM Club at Ivanna Eudora Kean High School on St. Thomas.
Lutheran Social Services and other faith-based organizations providing vital services to the Territory’s covered populations, namely older adults.
Virgin Islands Interagency Council on Homelessness and other community organizations that served the Territory’s unhoused population.
Children and youth summer camps and academies like UVI Research and Technology Park (RTPark) coding camp for children, called VI STEM Kids; and Girls that Code – USVI, a free academy hosted by UVI that aims to teach girls in grades 6th through 12th about computer science while fostering sisterhood and creativity; the St. Croix Environmental Association (SEA) Summer Program, and UVI’s Youth Ocean Explorer Summer Program, which is a 4-week, hands-on marine science program for middle to high school-aged students interested in exploring our oceans.
My Brother’s Workshop, a non-profit organization that offers programs in engineering, manufacturing, product packaging, inventory, and graphic design.
The Office of Health Information Technology (OHIT) and OHIT Working Group to support an integrated healthcare system that uses technology to improve the health and wellness of U.S. Virgin Islands residents.
Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR) on library initiatives and community-based, environmental conservation tech programming.

Lastly, creating new partnerships with organizations working on digital equity across the U.S. will be crucial to importing new ideas, methodologies, and evidence-based programming into the Territory. The Territory’s DE Team has already begun to build partnerships with Mainland-based organizations implementing digital inclusion programs that could be emulated in the Territory. Initial discussions have begun with the Durham County Library in North Carolina (for library-based digital inclusion programs, STEM-based programming for youth, and tech mobiles), the Kramden Institute in North Carolina and Digitunity in New Hampshire (on how to create a device refurbishment ecosystem in the Territory), Hopeworks in Pennsylvania (on technology skill development and real-world job experience for young adults), and PCs for People in Minnesota (on procuring and providing low-cost devices). Additionally, the Territory’s DE Team is also part of the NTIA Islands Cohort, a digital equity working group of all the American Territories – i.e., American Samoa, the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI), Guam and the USVI.

Strategy 6: Expand the foundation for promoting and advancing digital equity in the U.S. Virgin Islands

As digital equity and inclusion initiatives are in their infancy in the Territory, the U.S. Virgin Islands must invest in the core capacity, tools, and resources to help promote and advance digital equity across the Islands. These investments should include sustaining and expanding digital equity staffing at the local government level and adjusting program funding to ensure that a digital equity lens is being incorporated when making program decisions and prioritizing investments. Another key element – establishing a Digital Equity and Inclusion Director for the Territory – has already been completed. Additionally:

A USVI Digital Equity and Inclusion (USVI-DEI) Council will be established to steer and coordinate digital equity efforts across the Territory, as well as to advise local government agencies on best practices and programs.
Digital equity resources, including programmatic best practices, will be collected, developed, and made freely available online to support digital inclusion activities and programs locally.
Virgin Islanders will continue to be engaged on digital equity via a range of outreach and engagement methods. These could include annual workshops for local organizations offering digital equity programming to social media campaigns around digital inclusion themes and ideas.
The impact of digital equity initiatives will be measured and tracked in the Territory to demonstrate the impact of these programs locally.

Strategy 7: Sustain and grow the Territory’s investment in digital equity

The Territory’s commitment to digital equity requires a significant and ongoing commitment of resources to tackle a digital divide that has been exacerbated by a history of exploitation and extraction with low investment in the local economy and skill. To activate and sustain digital equity and inclusion initiatives, the Territory will need to raise funding beyond what may be available from the federal government. The USVIDEP’s goals and strategies will be expanded beyond the Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program performance period by establishing a Digital Equity Endowment for the Territory and revenue generation opportunities. The Territory's aim is to raise $5 million for the endowment over three years through private and philanthropic means, some of whom have already expressed interest in such a fund. The Territory will also pursue future digital equity funding opportunities that would bolster USVIDEP’s goals and strategies as they arise.

Lastly, the Territory’s DE Team will explore creating state-of-the-art digital learning labs where Virgin Islanders can log on to free high-speed broadband internet, experiment with digital devices and new technologies, and build or hone their digital skills. These community-led spaces will provide a safe and engaging environment for all Virgin Islanders to acquire new skills related to education, healthcare, workforce development, civic and social engagement, food sovereignty, and cultural expression.

Goals and Measurable Objectives

The success of the USVIDEP will be measured by documenting and promoting the five digital equity goals outlined by the NTIA under the Digital Equity Act:

Goal #1: Improve the availability of affordable fixed and wireless broadband technology in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Strategy: Per the FCC Connect USVI Fund Stage 2 grant, Broadband VI (“Liberty VI”) must build/expand a FTTH network to serve 46,039 locations through St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas with 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) speeds by 2027.

Key Performance Indicator( KPI): 100 percent of the requisite number of locations in the Territory will be offered 1 Gbps of services by the end of the sixth year.
Near term: 40 percent of the requisite locations in the Territory will be offered services by December 31, 2024.
Long term: 100 percent of the requisite locations in the Territory by December 31, 2027.
Baseline data: 46,039 locations with speeds below 1 Gbps

Strategy: Ramp up enrollment of eligible households across the Territory in the ACP to increase home broadband adoption through targeted outreach.

KPI: Increase the number of eligible households enrolled in the ACP by 10 percent per year for the next 3 years.
Long-term: All eligible and interested Virgin Islands households will be enrolled in ACP.
Baseline: 6,780 households

Strategy: Expand access to free high-speed internet via ARPA-funded community WiFi hotspots across the Territory.

KPI: Increase the number of free community Wi-Fi hotspots across the Territory to 200 by the end of September 2025.
Baseline: 90 community WiFi hotspots

Strategy: Provide one-year, high-speed home internet subscriptions for free to Virgin Islanders who successfully complete digital skills training(s) with proven community partners like UVI CELL.

KPI: Decrease the percentage of households in the U.S. Virgin Islands without high-speed internet in their home from 20.8 to 12 percent by 2029.
Baseline: 20.8 percent of households in the U.S. Virgin Islands do not have high-speed internet in their home.

Strategy: Explore best practices and other policy solutions, programs, and pilots that could support households if ACP is not funded beyond 2024.

KPI: Decrease the cost of 1 Mbps (download) in the Territory from $0.90 to no more than $0.60 by 2029.
Baseline: The cost of 1 Mbps (download) from either of the two major ISPs in the Territory is $0.90 as of March 21, 2024.

Goal #2: Improve the availability and affordability of consumer devices and technical support for those devices.

Strategy: Distribute free or low-cost computer devices that meet the user’s needs to Virgin Islanders who successfully complete digital skills training(s) with proven community partners.

KPI: Distribute 3,500108 free or low-cost devices of productivity that meet users’ needs (refurbished and new) based on a Learn2Earn model.
No baseline data

Strategy: Partner with proven community-led, device refurbishing programs on the Mainland to train organizations locally on how to set up, run, and sustain a device refurbishment ecosystem in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

KPI: Secure 500 donated devices from local businesses, institutions, and agencies to be refurbished.
No baseline data

Strategy: Collaborate with UVI CELL to offer (or create) an IT support program to build a cadre of IT professionals in the Territory.

KPI: Increase the cadre of IT professionals in the Territory by at least 100 percent by 2029.
Baseline: 20 IT jobs were available in the Territory as of October 2020, according to the Virgin Islands Department of Labor (VIDOL).

Goal #3: Improve the online accessibility and inclusivity of public resources and services.

Strategy: Consolidate all the Territory’s online public resources under one top-level domain for better security and user experience.

KPI: All public resources in the Territory are accessible online and under one top-level domain by 2029.
Baseline: To be determined by the Bureau of Information Technology (BIT) after analysis of online public resources in the Territory under the NTIA State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program (SLCGP) grant.

Strategy: Conduct a user-focused accessibility audit of all online public resources across the Territory to identify gaps and areas for improvement.

KPI: Audit is conducted, a catalogue of public resources is created, and gaps/recommendations are provided to BIT, relevant local gov’t agencies, and the public by 2029.
Long-term: Recommendations are adopted resulting in all the top public resources most used by Virgin Islanders being user-friendly and inclusive.
Baseline: Audit will determine the baseline data upon which improvements can be made.

Goal #4: Improve the digital skills (literacy) of Virgin Islanders.

Strategy: Use proven community partners, like UVI CELL, to introduce Learn2Earn digital skills programs so that all Virgin Islanders can acquire new marketable skills while earning a free or low-cost device and a 1-year broadband internet subscription.

KPI: Provide 3,500 Virgin Islanders with digital skills training by 2029.
No baseline data

KPI: Increase the confidence of Virgin Islanders in using the internet for activities like filing official documents online and seeking medical care from 46 and 44 percent, respectively, to 75 percent by 2029.
Baseline: Only 46 percent of USVIDES respondents said that they were “comfortable” filing official documents online and only 44 percent said that they were “comfortable” seeking medical care or engaging in telehealth consultations.

Goal #5: Improve the awareness and use of measures to secure the online privacy of, and cybersecurity with respect to, the individual.

Strategy: Launch territory-wide education and information campaigns on the value of the internet and how to stay safe online.

KPI: Develop campaign materials in English, Spanish, and Creole and distribute to the community.
Near-term: Materials are developed, translated, and disseminated by 2025.
Long-term: At least half of the population of Virgin Islanders aged 18 years (35,000 people) are reached by at least one campaign material by 2029.
No baseline data

Strategy: Launch territory-wide education and information campaigns on the value of the internet and how to stay safe online.

KPI: Reach at least 35,000 Virgin Islanders—roughly half of the population aged 18 years and older—with campaign messaging around online data security and privacy by 2029.
This will include public service announcements (PSAs) in local print newspapers, radio, television, digital billboards, and YouTube by 2025.
No baseline data

Submit Your Comments on USVIDEP

Public comments on the U.S. Virgin Islands' draft Digital Equity Plan can be submitted to jnbobbit@vingn.com or info@usvideal.com until April 27, 2024. For more information on digital equity in the Territory, visit the viNGN website.

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State Profiles

Fulfilling Oklahoma's Digital Promise

Grace Tepper — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Friday, November 10, 2023

Weekly Digest

Fulfilling Oklahoma’s Digital Promise

Round-Up for the Week of November 6-10, 2023

All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico are currently working on digital equity plans. As they release draft plans seeking public feedback, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is sharing summaries focused on how states define their digital divides and their vision for reaching digital equity.

Tepper

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. The draft Digital Equity Plan describes the strategies, objectives, and actions that the OBO will take to achieve this promise. OBO is accepting public comments on the draft plan until November 13, 2023.

Oklahoma's Vision of Digital Equity

OBO leads its draft Digital Equity Plan with two statements in mind: its vision for digital equity, and its Digital Promise to Oklahomans.

Oklahoma's vision is that Oklahomans will have access to the information, resources, and skills needed to participate in society to the fullest and to remain competitive in a digital marketplace.

Oklahoma's mission or Digital Promise is to close the digital divide by encouraging and facilitating partnerships across sectors, offering targeted grants to communities and organizations that address digital equity gaps, and by supporting communities’ digital equity planning and programming.

A key aspect of OBO’s vision is the collaboration with the state’s 39 tribes, as most unserved and underserved locations identified in the state are on tribal land (approximately 81% of unserved and 80% of underserved). Many of the same concerns and barriers identified in stakeholder engagement activities were also raised during the OBO’s tribal consultations. Participants expressed the desire for digital skills training, access to digital navigators at their local community anchor institutions, improved infrastructure, and more affordable service.

Populations with Barriers to Digital Equity

While 84.2 percent of households in Oklahoma subscribe to internet services of some kind, only 61.2 percent of households subscribe to fixed home internet (broadband such as cable, fiber optic, or DSL). There are large differences between counties. The highest rate of broadband adoption is 75 percent in Cleveland County, which is southeast of Oklahoma City. In fact, the five counties with the highest adoption rates (Cleveland, Canadian, Wagoner, Tulsa, and Oklahoma) either include urban areas or are adjacent to urban areas. Meanwhile, the five counties with the lowest adoption rates are in rural areas and predominantly on tribal lands.

Broadband affordability serves as an important determinant for home internet adoption. While many households may have access to broadband, some Oklahomans still struggle to pay for the service each month. According to data derived from a series of listening tours across the state, 59.2 percent of respondents believed that high costs were a barrier to households subscribing to home internet. Based on responses from the OBO's residential technology survey, residents pay an average of $61.60 for their internet service. Based on eligibility estimates produced by Education Superhighway and the number of total households from the 2021 iteration of the American Community Survey, roughly 46.4 percent of households in Oklahoma are eligible for the Federal Communications Commission's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). Of those eligible, 45.3 percent of households have enrolled in the program.

Overall, listening tour attendees cited the affordability of internet service (59%) and the availability of internet service (57%) as the two largest barriers facing members of their communities.

Aging Individuals

The primary barrier to internet subscription identified for aging individuals is the belief that they did not need the internet (29%). Another 12 percent of respondents cited not having a computer that can access the internet, and another 12 percent said that the internet was too complicated. While 91 percent of aging individuals have a computer at home, respondents without one were twice as likely to say that they did not own one because computers are too complicated (compared to all respondents without a computer). Moreover, while over 90 percent of aging individuals subscribe to home internet service of some kind, those without it were nearly twice as likely to say they didn’t because the internet was too complicated (compared to all respondents without home internet).

These results suggest that aging individuals struggle with navigating the internet—likely because they survived without the internet for much of their lives—and could benefit from digital skills training. Internet safety was also an issue for this population: ensuring aging individuals feel safe navigating online applications and platforms is critical to reducing barriers and increasing adoption rates.

Low-Income Households (At or Below 150% of the Federal Poverty Threshold)

For low-income households, the primary barrier facing this population was feeling like they did not need the internet (23%). Following that, the next most mentioned barriers related to affordability—15 percent cited not having a computer that could access the internet, and another 15 percent said that the monthly cost of internet service was too expensive. Compared to all respondents without home internet, respondents from low-income households were more likely to say they did not subscribe because of cost and nearly twice as likely to say that they didn’t subscribe because they didn’t have a computer that could access the internet. Disaggregating further, compared to all respondents without a computer, individuals from low-income households were nearly twice as likely to say they didn’t own one because computers are too expensive.

In addition to affordability concerns, respondents from low-income households with home internet had slower internet service than others surveyed; over 16 percent subscribed to download speeds slower than 25 Mbps. Among all respondents with home internet, only 6 percent subscribed to such slow speeds.

Racial or Ethnic Minorities

The most cited barrier for racial and ethnic minorities was feeling like they did not need the internet (29%). Following that, 12 percent of respondents said that the monthly cost of internet service was too expensive, and another 12 percent did not own a computer that could access the internet. While the survey did not probe why individuals said that they did not need the internet, the next most cited barriers revolve around affordability. Among racial or ethnic minorities that do not own a computer, 18 percent said the main reason was that computers are too expensive (compared to 14% of all respondents without computers) and 21 percent used a cell phone instead of a computer for everything (compared to 18% 0f all respondents without computers).

Focus groups reinforced the survey findings. While these respondents saw the need for the internet, 25 percent referred to immediate family members who did not see the need. Almost 13 percent did not own a computer that could access the internet. Despite all 100 percent of respondents listing cost as a primary barrier, none of them knew about any programs that offer cheaper internet service or devices. Compared to all survey respondents, racial or ethnic minorities were less likely to be familiar with the Affordable Connectivity Program and less likely to participate.

Individuals who Reside in a Rural Area

A belief that they do not need home internet service is the top barrier among rural households, cited by nearly 1 in 5 of those who do not subscribe to home internet service. This barrier is followed by a lack of available internet service (cited by 12% of rural non-adopters), while 1 in 10 say they don’t want home internet service, the monthly cost is too expensive, and they lack a home computer. These challenges suggest that many rural Oklahomans have not determined that home internet service is beneficial enough to pay the installation and monthly costs.

Rural residents participated in several of the covered population focus groups. When talking about their barriers, they spoke of challenges accessing and affording internet, especially to engage online with telehealth.

Persons with Disabilities

For persons with disabilities, the most cited barrier was feeling like they did not need the internet (35%). Beyond that, another 11 percent of respondents did not subscribe because they use a smartphone to do everything they need to do online.

Unlike some of the other covered populations, the use of technology and the internet by persons with disabilities is heavily gated by accessibility. Websites and resources that do not meet standards may be physically impossible to access, which would make the internet less appealing in general. Not only would it seem more complicated, but there would be fewer available websites to access. Additionally, assistive technologies are highly specialized and do not always leverage interoperability to the same extent as comparable devices used by people without disabilities. To transition from one device to another would involve finding, installing, and learning new software.

Veterans

For this group of Oklahomans, the top barrier to subscribing was feeling like they did not need the internet (27%). The second most cited reason was that they did not own a computer that could access the internet (19%). While rates of computer ownership among veterans are on par with the survey average, veterans were more than twice as likely to cite not having a computer as the main barrier to subscribing (compared to all respondents without home internet). Additionally, veterans pay comparatively more for their home internet than other covered populations. The average cost of internet among those surveyed was $61.60; veterans pay an average of $73.54 for their internet.

While 55 percent of all survey respondents were familiar with the ACP, only 37 percent of veterans had heard of it. Moreover, while 41 percent of respondents who had heard of the ACP participated, only 22 percent of veterans did. Not all veterans would qualify for the program, but any that receive the Veterans Pension and Survivors Benefit would be eligible.

In the Veterans focus group, participants identified reliability as the biggest barrier to using the internet. Many cited affordability as another issue, but all participants concurred that broadband is a necessity they were willing to pay for. Several participants also talked about accessing military resources online, including using ID.me to verify military status and access resources.

Persons with Language Barriers

The most cited reason for not subscribing for persons with language barriers was feeling like they did not need the internet (44%). Beyond that, an additional 25 percent of respondents emphasized that the monthly cost of internet service was too expensive.

Compared to all survey respondents without home internet, persons with language barriers were more than twice as likely to cite the cost of internet as the main barrier to subscribing. This finding coincides with the language barrier focus group in which 100 percent of respondents cited the cost of internet as the main barrier. Individuals with language barriers were not less familiar with the ACP than other respondents, but they were much less likely to participate. Out of all survey respondents familiar with the program, 41 percent participated; for persons with language barriers, only 24 percent participated.

Incarcerated Persons

According to the National Institute of Corrections, Oklahoma has 93 jails in 77 counties. As of December 31, 2020, there were 22,462 prisoners under the jurisdiction of Oklahoma correctional authorities. This includes state prisons, private prisons, and local jails. State operated facilities had a staff of 4,902 and a budget of $634,500,000. Additionally, 23,027 offenders were under probation and 2,237 were under parole.

While the residential survey did not reach incarcerated individuals, the OBO did meet with organizations and community leaders who work with and represent currently and
formerly incarcerated individuals. These conversations provided insight into the general and technology-specific challenges that inmates face upon re-entry. Many of the barriers to re-entry formerly incarcerated individuals face, including employment, housing, and transportation, could be supported through increased access and adoption of high-speed internet.

During an Oklahoma Digital Equity Coalition call, community leaders cited workforce development and access to health care as leading barriers faced by recently released inmates. For example, many job applications and job interviews are online only. Not only do many recently released inmates leave the justice system with little money to afford a computer, tablet, or internet subscription, but oftentimes recently released inmates are not familiar with the specific technology required to complete online forms and processes. The combination of the affordability and digital skills gap places an added barrier for recently released inmates transitioning back into society. This cycle
often leads to mental health struggles. Access to affordable and reliable health care, specifically resources for mental health, is an integral part of reducing recidivism.

Indigenous and Native American Persons

Tribal communities have historically been one of the most underserved communities, which is reflected in the map of unserved and underserved locations. The OBO engaged with all 39 tribes with invitations for formal consultations and conducted these consultations throughout the planning process. During these tribal consultations, issues related to the mitigation of that lack of service took the forefront. Due to the lack of availability and investment in broadband infrastructure, tribal communities have often been relegated to using inferior technologies that may have poorer speeds, higher latency, higher upkeep costs, and/or inconsistent availability.

The lack of infrastructure has also limited the number of providers in these regions. With fewer providers and a lack of competition to drive prices down, the tribes have been forced into paying higher costs for worse service. This lack of adoption and use of internet services directly impacts tribal communities and their access to resources.

Another issue that was repeatedly mentioned during OBO's tribal consultations was the lack of grant writing experience that impacted their ability strategize and apply for tribal-specific grant funding. Often being led by elders, the tribes experienced a significant amount of turnover during COVID, which negatively impacted administrative work. Larger tribes with more consistent income were able to mitigate this to an extent, but the smaller, poorer tribes were left in a position where they could not take advantage of the large windfalls of federal funds.

Implementation Strategy

By building and expanding programs, partnerships, and outreach in every region across the state, the OBO will accomplish its mission and vision to fulfill Oklahoma’s digital promise which includes affordability, access, and advancement.

Affordability

Oklahomans identified affordability as a key barrier to being online.

Goal: All Oklahomans, regardless of income, can subscribe to the internet and participate in online programs and resources with high-quality devices.

Objective: Ensure all Oklahomans have access to affordable high-speed internet.

Increase enrollment in the Affordable Connectivity Program and other low-cost internet service programs.
- Disseminate ACP outreach materials through community anchor institution networks and other partners to drive program awareness and accessibility.
- Utilize existing and planned digital navigators at public computing centers and libraries to help covered populations enroll in the ACP.
- Partner with the Oklahoma State Department of Education to provide ACP resources to students utilizing free and reduced-cost lunches or other ACP-qualifying programs.

What success looks like:

Increase ACP enrollment by 10 percent.
Train all digital navigators in CAIs in ACP enrollment.
Increase the number of partners working with the OBO on internet and device affordability.

Objective: Ensure all Oklahomans have access to internet-enabled devices.

Identify and promote free and reduced-cost device distribution programs, such as computer refurbishment programs and library lending programs.
- Expand the tablet program in Oklahoma correctional facilities.
- Engage with local CAIs, technology centers, and nonprofits who participate in or are interested in participating in device refurbishment and distribution programs.
- Partner with K-12 and higher education institutions to enable 1:1 device programs.
Support and promote access to quality technical support options.
- Encourage technology centers and education institutions to implement technical support programs that are freely accessible to covered populations.
Identify and partner with other federal and state device programs, such as Lifeline.
- Partner with Lifeline providers to help promote ACP adoption alongside the Lifeline Program.
- Train digital navigators on Lifeline enrollment processes and outreach.

What success looks like:

Increase the number of device access programs in the state.
Increase the number of technical support programs available in communities.

Access

Having the ability to access and safely engage with the digital world is essential.

Goal: All Oklahomans have the ability to access online resources and navigate digital opportunities safely.

Objective: Ensure Oklahoma residents and community anchor institutions have access to reliable high-speed internet.

Ensure all community anchor institutions (CAIs) can connect to affordable, high-quality internet.
- Add community anchor institutions to the Oklahoma broadband map to identify funding gaps.
- Implement a grant funding program specific to CAIs for digital inclusion advancement and expansion.
- Conduct an annual audit of CAIs technology capabilities.
- Evaluate a statewide solution for E-Rate filing assistance.
Ensure tribal communities have equitable access to broadband services.
- Encourage internet service providers to provide digital equity resources to tribal communities within their service areas/build-out areas.
- Provide technical support to tribal communities in creating their own digital equity plans.
- Encourage tribes to implement tribal digital navigators and provide support as needed.
Increase the ability of multifamily dwelling units (MDUs) to implement free, reliable high-speed internet and/or Wi-Fi for their residents.
- Partner with Education Superhighway to encourage multifamily dwelling units (MDUs) to increase access to high-speed internet.
- Reach out to cities to promote links to city internet.
- Identify and fund pilot MDU locations through a grant program throughout the life cycle of the funding program.
- Leverage existing partnerships with rural development and economic development organizations to help promote and fund the installation of Wi-Fi infrastructure in MDUs.
- Evaluate best practices for implementing free apartment Wi-Fi and distribute resources to support implementation.

What success looks like:

All CAIs are visible on the state broadband map.
The OBO develops and implements a CAI-specific grant program.
Tribal communities develop digital equity plans.
Tribal members have access to digital navigators in their areas.
Grant programs are implemented to expand internet access in MDUs.

Objective: Ensure Oklahomans can access and use digital resources safely.

Incorporate digital literacy and internet safety training into existing education, training, and community outreach programs.
- Develop technology training programs for rural communities.
- Identify virtual training resources that can be incorporated into workforce training programs for covered populations.
- Provide grant funding for CAIs and community support organizations to offer digital literacy training to seniors and other covered populations.
Create an online resource to allow all Oklahomans to find and connect to available programs and support.
- Continue to collect resources and develop an interactive public map with digital equity programs for covered populations in the state.
Develop internet safety training materials to ensure Oklahomans can stay safe online.
- Partner with the Oklahoma Information Sharing and Analysis Center to create an internet safety best practices outreach toolkit for public distribution.
- Encourage public computing centers to implement policies and procedures that are compliant with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA).
Promote safe online banking, especially in communities with low access to physical bank locations.
- Partner with the American Bankers Association and related organizations to create trainings and best practices for safe online banking.

What success looks like:

Increase the number of digital literacy training courses offered in the state.
Digital equity map published and used by residents.
Online publishing of internet safety toolkit.
All public computing centers maintain CIPA compliance.
Increase utilization of safe online banking.

Objective: Increase accessibility of state digital resources for covered populations.

Support state agencies with required accessibility audits, reporting, and best practices to ensure accessibility across all government websites.
- Encourage state agencies to develop multilingual materials in multiple formats to increase access to state data and resources.
- Partner with NewView to annually assess the accessibility of state agency websites and provide recommendations for improvement.
- Help distribute the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services’ Disability Resource Guide to CAIs to ensure accessibility of resources

What success looks like:

Increase accessibility of state agency websites.
Annual report from NewView of accessibility recommendations for state agency websites.

Advancement

Ensuring Oklahomans have the skills needed to use affordable, reliable high-speed internet will allow every resident to fully participate in the online world.

Goal: All Oklahomans will have an increased ability to access online resources and training in ways that advance their health, education, and economic opportunities.

Objective: Ensure Oklahomans can participate in online opportunities to advance health, education, and economic goals.

Increase access to telehealth programs across the state.
- Partner with the Corporation Commission to create a telehealth onboarding package that includes information about broadband funding.
- Add telehealth layer to the OBO broadband map.
- Create a telehealth subcommittee within the Digital Equity Coalition.
- Expand telehealth programs in more locations, including libraries, correctional facilities, schools, and rural health clinics.
Ensure local, regional, and state planning processes include digital equity components.
- Provide technical support and model documents for local and regional digital equity planning.
- Encourage economic development and workforce strategic plans to include digital equity components.
Increase the number of digital navigator programs in rural libraries.
- Develop a grant program to provide rural libraries with a digital navigator.
- Develop and provide training and resources to existing digital navigator programs in the state.
Identify potential areas of coordination and partnership across state agencies.
- Share annual report of the OBO activities with state agencies.
- Identify potential state agencies to serve as additional members of the Digital Equity Coalition.
- Explore programmatic and data collection activities that support increased connectivity and other statewide goals in workforce, education, health, civic and social engagement, and essential services.

What success looks like:

Increase the number of digital navigators by 10% each year of the grant program.
Develop and publish digital equity planning resources for local communities.
Increase the number of telehealth resources that are available in the state.
Evaluate existing telehealth programs and provide a report describing best practices.

Objective: Ensure Oklahoma is able to meet workforce and economic development goals so all citizens can thrive in a digital world.

Collaborate with partner agencies and organizations to leverage technology to support rural economic and community development.
- Partner with Oklahoma Taskforce for Workforce Development to establish partnerships and assist with workforce development plan.
- Encourage work-from-home job placement in rural communities.
- Partner with economic development agencies to support CAIs expanding their digital footprint and outreach.
Increase access to workforce training programs for covered populations.
- Utilize public-private partnerships to develop workforce programs targeted at the point of need.
- Partner with Technology Centers across the state to build technology-specific workforce curriculum.
- Partner with Oklahoma CareerTech, libraries, and other workforce development organizations to implement digital literacy programs in correctional facilities.
Encourage CAIs to create technology-focused five-year plans that can be leveraged for future funding opportunities.
- Develop and provide templates and general guidance on creating technology plans and identifying potential funding opportunities.
- Identify resources to help CAIs inventory their current technology hardware and programs.

What success looks like:

Ensure workforce development plans have digital skills and technology jobs components.
Increase the number of public-private partnerships for workforce development.
Increase the number of CAIs with an understanding of their current resources and plans for upgrades.

Send Your Feedback to Oklahoma

Public comments on Oklahoma's draft Digital Equity Plan can be submitted using the OBO's public comment survey until November 13, 2023. More information about Oklahoma's digital equity efforts can be found on the OBO website.

Quick Bits

Voters say yes to supporting broadband infrastructure across Texas as Proposition Eight passes
Black Churches Play a Key Role in Connecting Rural Communities to Broadband Internet (Daily Yonder)
‘It was Graft’: How the FCC’s CAF II Program Became a Money Sink (Broadband Breakfast)
Burlington Telecom Launches Internet Assistance Program (Burlington Telecom)

Weekend Reads (resist tl;dr)

FCC Proposes E-Rate Support for Wi-Fi Hotspots (FCC)
How mobile hotspots support people experiencing homelessness (Mobile Media and Communications)
USDA 2023 Technology Use Report (USDA)
3Q 2023 OpenVault Broadband Insights report
Broadband Infrastructure Playbook 3.0 (Fiber Broadband Association, NTCA)
Pathways Forward: Learnings and Takeaways in Digital Access (Patterson Foundation)

ICYMI from Benton

Upcoming Events

Nov 14––The Connect20 Summit (Network:On)

Nov 14––Leveraging AI to Enhance American Communications (House Commerce Committee)

Nov 14––Regulating digital industries (Brookings)

Nov 15––November 2023 Open Federal Communications Commission Meeting

Nov 15––U.S. Broadband Summit (Fierce)

Nov 15––Code to Conduct in AI: Open Source, Privacy, and More (Mozilla)

Nov 16––Addressing the Broadband Labor Shortage (telecompetitor)

Nov 17––Maternal Health Roundtable (FCC)

Dec 13––December 2023 Open Federal Communications Commission Meeting

For subscribe/unsubscribe info, please email headlinesATbentonDOTorg

Kevin Taglang
Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society
1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214
Wilmette, IL 60091
847-220-4531
headlines AT benton DOT org

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Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities

Series:

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

State Profiles

Your State Needs Broadband Legislative Champions. Just Ask Louis Riggs

Grace Tepper — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 11:00:11 +0000

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Digital Beat

Your State Needs Broadband Legislative Champions. Just Ask Louis Riggs

Louis Riggs’s impact in Missouri shows why every state needs a broadband legislative champion.

Riggs

In 2016, representatives from the northern region of Missouri met in Brookfield to talk about the issues they were facing. Stakeholders of all kinds—economic developers, USDA employees, elected officials, county commissioners, and mayors—from every county north of I-70 complained bitterly about everything their communities were going without.

As the meeting progressed, five topics were written on a board, five ways to find solutions to these communities’ needs.

Broadband was listed as number one.

The attendees never got to number two.

Louis Riggs was at that meeting, advocating for his community. For 15 years, Riggs has been an educator, an attorney, and an active advocate for economic development in rural Missouri.

“Broadband was something that permeated everything we did,” says Riggs.

And, Riggs says, eight of the ten worst-served counties in the state were in northeast Missouri.

At the same meeting, Janie Dunning, from the USDA, stood up and said, “What the state really needs is a legislative champion—and it doesn’t have one.”

“That really stuck with me,” says Riggs.

Organizing for Better Broadband

Riggs is a lifelong resident of Hannibal, located in the far northeast corner of Missouri that borders Iowa and Illinois. Hannibal and the upper reaches of the state have long gone without a strong voice to speak for residents and their needs. There hasn’t been a statewide elected official from the region since 2004.

“It’s been a struggle for a very long time,” Riggs says. “We understand that we have to punch above our own weight all the time.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, broadband became universally recognized as necessary for all Missouri residents. Riggs capitalized on that momentum and got to work.

Riggs formed a group of like-minded, grassroots, broadband organizers.

When Riggs talks about fighting for better broadband in Missouri, he recalls the first crucial moment for him at a 2017 meeting with then-Lieutenant Governor Mike Parson (R-MO), now governor of the state.

A small group of policymakers, including Riggs, sat with Parson and discussed how badly Missourians needed internet access, and how badly they needed a statewide point person for broadband.

“And he just looked at us for a couple of seconds, and said, ‘I'll do it,’” Riggs recounts.

Together, they talked to the governor’s policy director that afternoon.

Within a matter of months, a group numbering more than 100 people participated in a meeting at the Missouri Farm Bureau to discuss the need to deploy broadband across the state. Riggs was the only person in attendance from a grassroots organization. Among the attendees were two term-limited lawmakers, making the need for a legislative champion even more poignant.

When a legislative seat in his area opened in 2018, Riggs said it felt like perfect timing. Elected to the Missouri House of Representatives for District 5 in 2018, Riggs ran his campaign on broadband. Since being elected, Riggs has worked with state officials and stakeholders across Missouri to advance universal broadband.

Riggs’s impact in Missouri shows why every state needs a broadband legislative champion.

COVID Spurs Progress for Missouri Broadband

In 2018, Riggs had statewide support, a history of broadband advocacy, and the determination to improve broadband access in Missouri. He was, in his own words, “pulling teeth” to do it, but Riggs helped to secure $5 million for the Missouri Broadband Grant Program in 2019.

Last-mile coverage means the final leg of the telecommunications network which reaches end users. It’s that connection to every individual home. But to Riggs, it’s also “last-acre coverage” he’s concerned about, as the benefits of broadband for agriculture cannot be understated.

His first broadband bill, HB 1768, extended the Missouri Broadband Grant Program an additional six years to June 30, 2027. Under the legislation, grant recipients that did not meet the speed requirement of 25 megabits per second were required to repay any funds received through the program. In addition to extending the Missouri Broadband Grant Program, HB 1768 modified the capabilities of Neighborhood Improvement and Community Improvement Districts—areas that can be created by Missouri communities to build, maintain, or improve public infrastructure—to include broadband as an acceptable project. The law also added a 3-year statute of limitations on state funds to create a sense of urgency not present in Federal programs.

Since then, Riggs has stewarded numerous bills supporting broadband funding and state actions to close the digital divide. And the state has drastically increased funding for broadband in Missouri:

In 2020, the state legislature appropriated $3.05 million to the Missouri Broadband Grant Program overseen by the Broadband Development Office.
In 2021, $10 million in Department of Economic Development federal stimulus funding was appropriated to the Broadband Development Office for grants.
In 2022, with additional federal funding from the state’s COVID-19 response funds, the Broadband Development Office awarded over $42 million in grants.

Within three years, small appropriations became much bigger appropriations as broadband deployment needs became more evident.

According to Riggs, the key is to supplement federal funding—from the CARES Act, the American Rescue Plan Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—with state funds so communities have the resources to “play ball” with providers.

Now-Governor Mike Parson (R-MO) signed SB 820 into law in June 2022. The law holds providers accountable for using the funds they are given and authorizes the state to seek the return of broadband funding from any provider that defaults or breaches agreements to deploy broadband.

Since Federal funds are allocated at the census block level, SB 820 also gives the State of Missouri standing to sue the Federal government to keep defaulted Federal funds in Missouri. The State’s Broadband Fund stands ready to receive such funds and allocate them according to statute: unserved first, underserved second, and “other,” third. Additional language enables any political subdivision in the State—including water supply districts and school districts—to erect towers to deploy broadband resources. This provision was brought to Riggs by an urban Democrat who wants to see abandoned school sites turned into locations for towers that can bridge the digital divide in the urban core.

Broadband Champions Need Partners

Having strong partners is crucial to achieving success in this line of work, says Riggs. He is grateful to other state officials, namely BJ Tanksley, leader of the Missouri Office of Broadband Development and former head of the Missouri Farm Bureau, who has been working to close the digital divide for a long time and is, Riggs says, a joy to work with:

BJ knows the entire state. He’s a Missourian by birth, and he came from a place with poor internet service. He gets it. Having a person like that who has that real-world knowledge, who knows the entire state and, basically, everybody in the entire state, is so important.

Riggs also acknowledges how Gov. Parson’s support got the ball rolling on broadband.

“The Governor increased the size of the [broadband] office from one person to basically 15 people. A major part of this was getting that broadband office into a position where they could succeed.”

Having a full broadband office gives Missouri the power to protect its communities from bad actors, control the influx of funding coming into the state, and show residents progress on infrastructure deployment.

In 2021, Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives Rob Vescovo appointed the Interim Committee on Broadband Development to prepare a comprehensive report on the digital divide in Missouri and make legislative and fiscal recommendations for the state. Riggs was tapped to chair the committee. To create the report, Riggs and the Missouri broadband team held town hall meetings all over the state to hear from residents about how they experience the digital divide.

In the final report issued in January 2022, the committee recommended more funding for the Missouri Broadband Office and for its state broadband infrastructure matching grant program, as well as additional staff to improve the oversight of participating internet service providers. The committee also recommended raising the state’s definition of broadband to 100/20 Mbps in accordance with the federal standards for incoming Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding. Further recommendations included legislation to encourage the use of government-owned structures and broadband assets in broadband deployment, public-private partnerships, overhaul rights-of-way access and pole attachment policies, and institute “Dig-Once” policies to enhance the efficiency of broadband infrastructure deployments.

The report also made clear the need for a Broadband Development Council that could create a publicly accessible broadband mapping resource for Missouri residents.

The Need for Speed

To maximize funding to expand broadband infrastructure, Riggs is a proponent of being technology “agnostic.” To him, the most important thing is getting the right speeds, regardless of how the connection is built.

“I'm technology agnostic, but I'm not speed agnostic. Wireless has some serious [speed] problems," he says. "At the end of the day, fiber is future-proof unless somebody cuts a line.”

Riggs says that almost all of Missouri’s broadband infrastructure funding so far has gone to expanding fiber networks because that’s how the right speeds are delivered. He notes in particular that local cooperatives are doing a “lights out” job, and state standards have been flexible enough to allow these local providers to compete for funding.

“Their ethic is, ‘Hey, we're your neighbors, we're not here to extract profits from you. We're here for the long haul. We've been here for the better part of a hundred years, and we're gonna be here for another hundred. How can we help?’”

Looking for technology solutions that are best for what communities need is an iterative, constant process, Riggs says.

“You have to keep your foot on the gas all the time. You can't relax, you can't rest on your laurels. Technology is improving under your feet, whether you like it or not. You must keep up with the times and hopefully, you’ll stay ahead of it.”

It’s important to understand that broadband is no longer a why we need it issue, Riggs says. Conflicts arise when broadband access discussions come to how we do it, whether it’s disagreements between state officials or internet service providers.

“At the end of the day when we all sit down, we have to look at what is in the best interest of the state of Missouri,” he says. “Not you, not your shareholders. Us. If you wanna be part of the solution, great. If you wanna be the problem, be the problem. But we're going to move forward, period. I try to convey that message to as many people as I can, that this thing needs to move forward.”

Looking Ahead

In both 2021 and 2022, Riggs sponsored bills that would have established state broadband improvement districts, a Missouri Broadband Deployment Task Force, and a statewide Broadband Enhancement Council to create broadband mapping services and an interactive public map.

While these measures may not have passed, Riggs is still fighting for universal broadband and is hopeful for Missouri’s broadband future. The only way forward for him is to never give up.

“I was told in 2022, on eight separate occasions, that [SB 820] was dead,” says Riggs. “And every time I said, ‘My bill's not dead until I say it's dead.’ And that bill's hanging on my wall. You have to be persistent.”

In the future, Riggs hopes to accomplish a number of things. Holding broadband service providers more accountable for offering affordable plans is something he wants to seeand the state is working on what that will look like.

Missouri also wants to expand digital navigator programs, like those that are seeing success in Kansas City, Riggs says.

“Kansas City has great programs, and we want to work on providing digital navigators throughout Missouri. We know who we need to talk to, we know who's doing this every day. It's just a question of putting resources in place so the entire state can replicate that.”

Intergovernmental coordination is crucial, Riggs says, especially on the link between broadband and workforce development opportunities. He adds that this synergy is something Gov Parson is really focused on because broadband enables people to educate themselves, to learn about job opportunities, and digital literacy skill-building courses.

“At the back of all this is the ability to knit the workforce together through online resources,” says Riggs. “[Remote work] is here to stay. We know that. The question is what do we do? Do we turn that into a strength, do we build on it, or do we sit there and wring our hands? I prefer the strength approach.”

Those applications––whether they be workforce development, telehealth, online banking, or other uses––are why Missouri is looking to achieve universal broadband as soon as possible.

“I would say a solid 90 to 95 percent of Missouri should be able–within three to four years–to say, ‘Hey, I got the broadband connection I need.’ There'll be some in pockets that will never be reached with fiber. But we're putting all the pieces on the board to see exactly what we need to do next.”

Listening and Leadership

State Representative Riggs has been recognized for his work on numerous committees. On the state level, he served as the chairman of the aforementioned Special Interim Committee on Broadband and the Special Committee on Broadband and Infrastructure. Riggs is also a member of the Board of Directors of Missouri Rural Development Partners as well as the Missouri Workforce Development Committee.

“It's all a part of active listening,” he says. “I went back to school in 2012 to become a mediator, and that skill set is active listening. What are you telling me, and what do you actually mean? How do we get from where you want to be to where we need to be?”

According to Riggs, his experiences as a college professor and as an attorney heavily influence his ability to connect with communities as a legislator to make changes at the state level.

This work has made a lasting impact on Riggs, particularly working with people who have sacrificed to help bring broadband to their communities.

“The most humbling thing was a gentleman walking in my Capitol office door offering a piece of land to the state of Missouri for a tower,” he says. “You don't get any better than that. It just gives you goosebumps to deal with folks like that. I'll remember that until the day I die.”

The significance of the opportunities that broadband access can provide is never lost on him, and neither are the lessons he learns from being a community advocate.

“I know this is the most important thing I will do in my life. I have six million people in Missouri, and a million of them don't have good internet and depend on what we do in Jefferson City. What I'm doing to make this thing go is humbling and also daunting. But it's a process and it's a journey. I learn every single day whether I want to or not.”

Becoming a Broadband Legislative Champion

So, how can you become a broadband legislative champion for your state?

You learn from people who are doing the work in their communities and see if you can do this work in yours.

“Talk to people who have been there, done that,” Riggs says. “There are a number of us out there who are adamant that this has just got to happen. We don't take no for an answer. It’s our life’s passion…obsession probably.”

Riggs is acutely aware that his time as a state representative is term-limited and he wants to do whatever he can with the influence he currently has.

“I'm termed out in 2026—win, lose or draw,” he says. “I want to talk about broadband in the past tense before I leave in 2026. I want this problem to be solved so we can look at it and say, ‘yeah, we did that. It took us a while to get there, but we did it.’”

Not every state has the coordination between the broadband office, the governor, and the state legislature that Riggs and his peers enjoy. But this can be learned, he says. There are webinars and resources from successful partnerships to emulate.

Since June 2021, Riggs has hosted monthly Zoom calls for the Northeast Missouri Broadband Steering Committee that meets to provide updates to stakeholders, discuss what needs to be done, and prepare next steps.

“Now we have folks from other states signing on to that call to see how we do things,” he says. “It’s nothing fancy, but it is informative and it is consistent. Our secret sauce is communication. No one gets blindsided and everyone is aware of what everyone else is doing.”

To make things happen, it just takes care for your community, drive, and knowledge to succeed.

Grace Tepper is a Senior Writing Associate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

For subscribe/unsubscribe info, please email headlinesATbentonDOTorg

Kevin Taglang
Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society
1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214
Wilmette, IL 60091
847-328-3040
headlines AT benton DOT org

Share this edition:

Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities

Series:

State Profiles

Boosting Digital Equity in Phoenix

Grace Tepper — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 11:22:00 +0000

Monday, June 26, 2023

Digital Beat

To aid both state broadband policymakers and local communities as they create state visions of digital equity, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society's Visions of Digital Equity Project seeks to highlight diverse perspectives to the issues surrounding digital equity, from Alaska to Texas, covering rural, urban, and tribal challenges. We've captured some of those perspectives in a series of essays.

These insights informed a set of principles to guide the work of creating visions of digital equity. This month, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is soliciting feedback on these principles.

Boosting Digital Equity in Phoenix

Tepper

A partnership between Common Sense Media, Arizona State University (ASU), and the Digital Equity Institute is working to increase awareness of and enroll eligible households in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). Through a multipoint marketing campaign targeted to low-income communities with high eligibility for the federal broadband subsidy program, Common Sense Media is directing Phoenix residents toward the ASU Experience Center, a call center with more than 100 phone specialists. Here, trained employees walk Phoenicians through the ACP application process.

With the Digital Equity Institute, ASU is working to bring a team of digital navigators to the Experience Center and build off of the partnership with Common Sense Media. With additional funding from Maricopa County, ASU’s Experience Center continues to expand its capabilities to make a range of digital equity resources available to callers.

This work could not be done without combining national resources and community knowledge. Local organizations and preexisting digital navigators ground the work in community knowledge and connections, while the policy expertise and resources provided by Common Sense Media help to expand reach. ASU’s Experience Center has the infrastructure and people to run the campaign’s programming end, building off of other efforts to help ensure that everyone is online.

Trust is central to the campaign’s efficacy, both in advertising and over the phones. All of the marketing materials identify Common Sense Media, ASU, and the City of Phoenix to make it clear that these trusted organizations are active participants in the campaign. This is crucial so that eligible residents differentiate the campaign from an internet service provider marketing its own services.

At the call center, digital inclusion training stresses practicing empathy to connect with callers and work with them to accomplish the arduous task of enrolling in the ACP.

“I know the person calling me has been through hell,” says Alexa Tarvid, digital navigator supervisor at ASU. “A person who has fought their battles, who doesn’t want to have to call us but needs to. I’m here to serve them; whatever they’re feeling, I’m feeling.”

Connecting the Unconnected

Phoenix is a prime location for this awareness campaign for a number of reasons. The COVID-19 health emergency closed schools, libraries, and community centers, sending students to learn from home. More than 250,000 families did not have access or adequate internet speeds to attend school or finish assignments. In Maricopa County, some neighborhoods report that as many as 70 percent of residents are still without adequate internet performance needed for remote work, downloading homework, and streaming as of late 2022.

The ratio of ACP-eligible households to ACP-enrolled households in the city leaves a lot of room to grow. And a lot of people could immediately benefit from the outreach program.

Phoenix is an incredibly diverse city. Over 42 percent of the population is Hispanic, and some ACP-eligible households face a language barrier to internet access. To address this, the call center services are all available in English and Spanish, as is the advertising campaign run by Common Sense Media.

Access to affordable broadband internet through the Affordable Connectivity Program is often the tip of the iceberg of issues for the callers the Experience Center helps daily. The intersectionality of internet access and its effect on the health, economic mobility, educational opportunity, and agency of its users is what makes digital equity so important.

The ASU Experience Center received more than 1,500 calls about the ACP in the first two months of the outreach campaign. People reaching out to the Experience Center for help have lived with inequities all their lives. They know what it means to be without the benefits of the internet.

The call center has been helping a neurodivergent man who is acting as his mother’s caregiver. He struggles with technology and has been the victim of scams in the past. Without the ACP, he and his mother wouldn’t be able to afford internet access at all. Gaining access to broadband allows him to manage his mother’s medical appointments and records and more easily access the resources he needs to keep them both afloat.
Another call the center received was from a grandmother with a disability raising her granddaughter. Her granddaughter is participating in online schooling. The school has supplied the laptop but cannot help with the internet. Their high internet bill has been causing serious stress on their already extremely tight budget. The ACP helps to loosen that budget and helps this grandmother sleep a little easier at night.
An older woman currently has internet access, but her daughter pays for it. Her daughter was just diagnosed with cancer, and so, to not put any more of a burden on her daughter, she is trying to enroll in the ACP and get internet access all on her own.
An older gentleman called, just wanting to know what this internet stuff is all about, and is getting help from ASU to enroll in the ACP program, get connected, and get a device.

Once people experience this program and find out that it works for them, the network effect expands reach deeper into eligible communities: “If you get a kid online, they can now help their parents; they can help their grandparents. And the parents can tell their friends this program is legitimate,” says Drew Garner, state broadband policy fellow at Common Sense Media. “And we see that in events where people tell other people that this thing works.”

According to Tarvid, explaining all the opportunities that come with internet access is more impactful than using one definition of digital equity when she’s on the phone. Once they hear what broadband can help them do, she says, they don’t have a hard time understanding what digital equity means.

“They don’t have internet, so they can’t do online banking. They can’t look at their health records immediately. People then see that it’s really important,” Tarvid says. “Once you start that train of thought for them, it carries very easily.”

The Importance of Achieving Digital Equity

Sustainability is central to the success of the outreach campaign and any digital equity initiative. It is all about setting communities up for ongoing support, and sharing information to ensure that long-term inequities are being addressed. Building up digital equity resources means investing in established local initiatives, reliable partners, and future growth.

“There should be an ecosystem,” says Erin Carr-Jordan, managing director of the Digital Equity Institute. “It should be that there is a trusted source in addition to folks you already know and already trust who are in your communities.”

Carr-Jordan says that the Affordable Connectivity Program and the call center’s services are a crucial way to further digital equity initiatives in Phoenix.

“The ACP is a catalytic lever that we can pull,” she says. “But again, it is a complex ecosystem of levers that all need to be pulled, and they need to be pulled through the lens of the community of the people. “It is one more reason why having Common Sense as a collaborator--who reaches communities in a way that is well-received—proves a human-centered lens with a digital equity overlay is the best way to conduct outreach.”

The Digital Equity Institute puts this at the heart of its mission of connecting diverse stakeholders––whether they are state, local, or Tribal governments, educational institutions, libraries, health care service providers, or other community anchors––to encourage the development of digital equity ecosystems.

“It has to reflect the diversity of the communities,” Carr-Jordan says. “It can’t be designed in a bubble. It can’t be defined by people who are unfamiliar with what marginalization looks and feels like.”

Explaining Digital Equity

“It is in the best interest of the city to make this a sustainable city at the end of the day, so you want to make sure that you have a level playing field for all of your families,” said Christine Mackay, director of Phoenix Community and Economic Development. “That means they all have access to a quality education so that they can find good jobs. That’s really what you want for all of your citizens.”

Dr. Chad Gestson, superintendent of the Phoenix Union High School District, said, “In this highly technological world, tech access should not be a privilege; it should be a right.”

The tools that broadband makes available and the agency a person gains with them are the keys to understanding digital equity—and therefore inequity.

“The wires and the devices and the technology by themselves don’t have any inherent value,” says Garner. “It's only what the person can do with them that matters. That’s the value those technologies bring.”

What Digital Equity Looks Like

ASU undergraduate student, Mary Haddad, shared at a university ASU town hall her vision for a future in which the internet is readily accessible for all: “In an ideal future, we are providing training, online tools, and resources, making sure that we are continuously available if they need help and support.”

To Carr-Jordan, the success of digital equity efforts is measured in a variety of ways. ACP enrollment data is key. But just as important are qualitative measurements of success. For her, this happens in two ways: lives changed and positive community response.

Seeing that people are able to use the tools the internet brings and apply them to their needs is one direct measure of success. And if the community gives feedback saying that they are doing a good job, that is another.

“It's the holistic, comprehensive understanding that will actually tell us whether we have done a good job,” she says.

Maine Drafts a Five-Year Broadband Action Plan

Grace Tepper — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Thursday, June 22, 2023

Weekly Digest

Maine Drafts a Five-Year Broadband Action Plan

Round-Up for the Week of June 19-23, 2023

Tepper

All 50 states are currently working on Five-Year Action Plans for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. As they release draft plans, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is sharing summaries focused on how states define their broadband goals and priorities.

Last week we took a look at Maine's vision for digital equity and its Digital Equity Plan. This week, we are breaking down what the state plans to do with its BEAD Program funding to achieve universal broadband for all Mainers through its Five-Year Action Plan. Together with a network of collaborators across the state, Maine is committed to a multi-year, multi-disciplinary approach, leveraging all necessary resources to bring broadband to all.

Infrastructure Deployment in Maine

The digital divide is leaving some Mainers further and further behind every day. For the approximately seven percent of Mainers who have no internet connection, a connected digital life does not exist except maybe in a local library, a friend’s house, or on a tiny mobile phone screen. Maine identifies the following barriers to universal broadband that the state must address first:

Maine’s unique geography, demographics and current broadband infrastructure present a host of challenges when efficiently and inexpensively deploying new broadband infrastructure.
The quality of internet connections causes frustration for Mainers across the board, whether because of a slow connection, a lack of capacity to support all the devices and uses, or periodic outages. The Maine Broadband Survey showed that 40% are dissatisfied with their connection.
Baseline data is being updated and refined regularly, impacting the scale of the problem and available resources and bringing communication and process challenges.
Community broadband planning in Maine has traditionally taken place at a municipal level, but for deployment at this scale to happen at a cost-effective and relatively rapid pace, efforts must be regionalized.
Access to capital at scale is limited for public and private partners. Financing for public ownership at a regional scale is critical, but support and financing for utility districts and publicly owned efforts remain limited.
Some elements of the broadband infrastructure deployment—such as the pole attachment process, permitting, insurance, and other regulations—require significant resources to navigate and will slow the overall process if not addressed.
More than 3,400 new broadband workforce positions are needed to address the surge of investment, highlighting an increasing need to develop a talent pipeline to meet these needs.
The cost of internet service continues to be a significant barrier to broadband adoption.
A shortfall of critical digital skills support is a major barrier to allowing Mainers to leverage the internet to advance education and work goals or access other relevant resources online. There is widespread interest in and need for digital skill building, especially among older adults and other "covered populations."
Access to devices and technical support to operate them is an ongoing issue. People are using friends, family, or coworkers for technical support. There are insufficient trusted and accessible sources for technical support in communities or awareness of existing supports. In our survey, just 5 percent went to a local institution for help, and more than a quarter simply gave up when they couldn’t fix their device.

Regulatory Barriers and Policy Recommendations

The Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA) identified several legislative and regulatory barriers to accelerated infrastructure deployment. Frequently mentioned among these were the issues of the need for long-term affordability (systemic changes or permanent subsidy programs like the Federal Communications Commission's Affordable Connectivity Program or others), financing options for broadband projects (especially publicly owned models), pole attachment costs, complexity and challenges, permitting, rights of way access, service standards.

Given the surge of regulatory requirements across multiple federal funding programs combined with the integration of new data that will shape policy and practice, the pragmatic insights gained by MCA through the design, development and deployment of funding will be honed through the second half of 2023. Additional inputs to inform MCA’s policy and regulatory priorities include an analysis by the Maine Broadband Coalition, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Governors Association, and the Schools Libraries and Health Broadband (SHLB) Coalition, among others. Here are some of the emerging policy and regulatory priorities at this time.

Affordability

Maine should continue to encourage the federal government to fund and strengthen the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).
Maine should also consider a complementary state-based affordability program to create stability and encourage more eligible Mainers to enroll.
Maine could develop a policy to enforce higher standards for price and service level transparency from providers.
Maine could adopt a Subscriber Bill of Rights, which would guarantee certain conditions for Maine’s broadband subscribers.
Requiring long-term affordability conditions for grant recipients (10-20 years, longer than the current 3).

Digital Equity to Drive Adoption

Maine needs an e-government and digital access strategy for all levels of the public sector.
Campaign to improve performance of existing services: many internet subscribers could benefit from actions providers and individuals could take to improve existing service, particularly by upgrading outdated modems and Wi-Fi routers, repositioning equipment in the home to improve Wi-Fi connections, and adding mesh network extenders.
Establish a tax incentive program for organizations to donate used equipment.
Establish fees for disposing and recycling hazardous e-waste, with exemptions for usable and viable donated equipment.
Maine needs a state digital equity policy including elements like ongoing tech support.
Safety is a major concern, and Maine could strengthen and widen privacy laws and fund training for at-risk individuals in internet safety.
Fund the promotion of internet safety techniques, laws, and courses.

Infrastructure

Regional scale solutions are critical. Maine could significantly accelerate deployment by enabling multi-municipal partnerships attracting new investment and enabling network diversification.
Expand and codify standards for accountability. While MCA already facilitates a rigorous verification and validation process, a policy to ensure proposed service targets will be achieved prior to eligibility for new awards.
Expand programming to provide line extensions in unserved areas through targeted negotiations with broadband providers and towns. (Building from MCA’s Reach Me Program).
Plan, develop, and own a strategic expansion of open-access, middle-mile infrastructure to ensure internet transport resilience, last-mile service diversification, and alignment with economic development driver objectives.
Maine could employ fixed wireless as a temporary solution by providing state contracts with private providers for interim periods that are in a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) pipeline but potentially years from getting connected.
Strategically integrate non-wired solutions to compliment fiber to the premise (FTTx) enabling diverse service options for fixed wireless and improved mobile connectivity.
Establish a focused initiative to align state goals to connect the unconnected as a complementary element of the Five Year Master Plan
Utilize remaining American Rescue Plan Act funding (The Capital Projects Fund and Maine Jobs Recovery Program) to integrate with BEAD funding through a common data-driven target analysis, universal service requirement but prioritization of unserved locations increasingly factoring in digital equity objectives. The Connect The Ready Cohort 2 launched in the summer of 2023 and will serve the purpose of aligning with BEAD funding parameters and requirements.
As middle-mile funding drives planning and priorities, continued alignment with the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, Department of Transportation, Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Information Technology, Department of Economic and Community Development, Maine State Library Network, and others will be key to success.

Incentivizing Publicly Owned Infrastructure

Ensure publicly-owned projects have equitable access to grant funds through a parallel process and funding stream that accommodates municipal governance timelines, budgeting, and regional utility development.
Consider capitalization of the Municipal Gigabit Broadband Access Fund through state-appropriate funds to leverage regional universal projects that meet and exceed Maine’s broadband standard.
Policies, partnerships and strategies to improve access to capital for Broadband Utility Districts (BUDs) that include a refinement and clarification around BUD eligibility for tax-exempt bond funding.
Consider additional incentives for publicly-owned networks expanding for regional coverage of adjacent unserved areas to reinforce community-supported expansion and diversified service options in rural locations.

Policies to Address Barriers to Broadband Deployment

Pole attachment processes (licensing, contracts, Make-Ready, data sharing) will need modification to accommodate the surge of activity anticipated through the next few years.
Maine may pursue policy reforms to incentivize providers and contractors to train more workers through a program like the Dirigo Investment Zone Initiative.
State-built infrastructure and transfer arrangements.
Evaluate requirements for open-access dark fiber after an exclusivity period for the co-funding partner of publicly-subsidized networks.
Support federal legislation to mitigate income tax liability for recipients of federal funding.

Maine's Strategies for Universal Broadband

1. Prioritize funding to maximize impact, balancing urgency, universality, and equity

Maine seeks to stretch funds to optimize the impact of investments. Maine will focus on balancing the dynamic tension of designing solutions for everyone while prioritizing those who are most disadvantaged.

Apply a digital equity lens to infrastructure projects and other programs to prioritize investment impact through an enhanced broadband mapping and analysis platform to be known as the Connectivity Headquarters for Analysis Research and Transparency (CHART) including a multi-criteria decision-making framework.
BEAD funding will be utilized and distributed by MCA to first deploy infrastructure to the approximately 42,000 unserved locations across the state, addressing affordable access for those with no connection. The next priority for these funds will be the 52,000 locations considered unserved by the state of Maine.
Lead the Interagency Broadband Working Group to coordinate broadband implementation with state plans/strategies, including capital planning, climate resilience, affordable housing, economic development, transportation, workforce, education, etc.
Establish a Connectivity Hubs Program in 2024-2026 to support education, workforce, and telehealth programming and public access to the internet, devices, and digital skills at community anchor institutions identified for maximum potential impact.

2. Proactively drive investments as a comprehensive portfolio

Maine will develop and implement a restructured deployment system to enable rolling funding applications and a managed flow of project development and technical assistance to allow for braided funding sources and an increased alignment of resources.

The Connectivity Headquarters for Analysis Research and Transparency (CHART) will serve as a decision-making framework for how expanded criteria inform funding, priority areas and partnerships, such as looking at areas with high percentages of covered populations, homes without a device, or layering in other digital equity factors such as income, educational attainment, and/or gaps in programs and resources identified in the digital equity asset inventory as part of the evaluation for infrastructure investments.
Build on Maine’s history of community-driven broadband solutions using the CHART to provide transparent data-driven decisions and prioritization and technical assistance to communities, so they will can pursue community broadband planning at a local or regional level.
Facilitate ongoing dialogue and engagement with Internet Service Providers to assess and align opportunities for deployment to complement and maximize their private investment.
Continue refining existing infrastructure programs such as Connect the Ready, Reach Me, and Jumpstart to enable diverse technologies and models to increase competition and options that lower costs for the projects and consumers.
Establish a resource bank for technical assistance and shared services, including general technical assistance, data analysis, network design, legal and financial consulting and grant procurement.

3. Optimize Broadband Deployment

The state will decrease barriers to delivering broadband at scale and speed, braiding funding and leveraging resources. By identifying data and policy challenges to address these barriers, MCA can improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Unlock access to complimentary capital, financing solutions and other resources to ensure the opportunity for a diverse and healthy ecosystem and various ownership models for projects of all types.
Support public ownership models, including for municipal, regional and broadband utility districts, enabling diversification of ownership structures in Maine.
Coordinate a multi-pronged approach to address structural, data and policy challenges to the utility pole process to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Enable workforce pathways for educational, training and employment opportunities to ensure Maine has the human capital needed to support this unprecedented influx of funding. Promote broadband career awareness & exploration by creating a Maine Broadband Career Hub and leveraging partnerships to create a talent pipeline.
Propose and implement additional (potentially NTIA-funded) Middle Mile investments that will create much-needed backhaul infrastructure, as well as improve access to affordable last mile. MCA also plans additional CPF-funded middle-mile investments.

4. Expand and Enhance the Foundation for Digital Equity

MCA will ensure that all Mainers, especially the most disadvantaged, have access to and can use information and communications technologies by sustaining and growing that digital equity foundation.

Formalize and ensure the continuity of the digital equity infrastructure in Maine by more than doubling NTIA’s Digital Equity investment by launching a $15 million Digital Equity Fund.
Transform the Digital Equity Asset Inventory into an interactive online resource to provide information about digital inclusion programs and resources.
Produce digital equity-focused events, such as an annual Digital Equity Workshop, to drive collaboration, support shared learning, monitor progress, and communicate impact.
Act as a partner and convenor, providing structure to bring together the Digital Equity Taskforce, Regional and Tribal Broadband Partners, Interagency Broadband Working Group and others.
Partner with the National Digital Equity Center (NDEC) to support a statewide cohort of digital navigators across organizations and agencies, hosting a central digital navigator training and sharing information and best practices.
Support a Tribal Broadband Initiative to support connectivity and digital equity for the Tribes in Maine.

5. Focus on Affordability

Maine will improve the affordability of internet service so the high cost of reliable internet is no longer a significant barrier to adoption, ensuring that more Mainers are aware of the available support through initiatives like the Affordable Connectivity Program.

Lead and expand the ACP4ME Campaign, which provides support statewide with materials and training for partners to conduct outreach and enrollment activities.
Engage with our partners to explore best practices and other policy solutions, programs, and pilots that could provide support if the ACP is not funded beyond 2024.
Work with the affordable housing community to research, launch, and fund an Affordable Housing Connectivity Program, ensuring that the thousands of people living in affordable housing units in Maine have affordable access and the support they need to fully connect, including apartment Wi-Fi, digital skill training, affordable devices and technical support, and internet safety education.
Identify and incentivize options for multiple services strategies for extremely high-cost unserved locations and underserved locations to increase competitive markets where possible.

6. Raise Awareness and Strengthen Feedback Loops

MCA will drive demand for services by understanding how people need and want to use the internet. MCA will collaborate with partners to design and launch statewide educational campaigns promoting workforce and training opportunities, internet safety, device refurbishment, and general awareness.

Regular progress monitoring and data sharing will increase transparency and support communication of our collective progress.
Launch an Internet Safety for ME Campaign, creating various tools to be employed by trusted partners and leveraging media and law enforcement engagement.
Launch an Affordable Devices for ME Campaign encouraging and enabling device donation for refurbishment and redistribution to covered populations.
Identify and create a series of video and photographic Digital Equity Stories illustrating the impact of the digital divide, examples of digital inclusion programs, and the impact of digital equity on people’s lives and communities.

Broadband & Maine's Other Priorities

The objectives of this plan will impact and interact with the goals of the State of Maine in several areas, including economic and workforce development, educational attainment, healthy aging, and improved access to telehealth and telemonitoring services. The state highlights the intersectional nature of its broadband strategy and its benefit to other state objectives.

Maine Wants to Hear From You

The Maine Connectivity Authority released its draft Broadband Action Plan on June 9, 2023. Public comments on Maine's draft plan can be submitted using this form until June 30, 2023. MCA will reflect on all that it has heard from individuals, communities and partners and revise the plan before submitting it to NTIA on August 1st.

Quick Bits

Weekend Reads (resist tl;dr)

ICYMI from Benton

Upcoming Events

June 26—Smart Rural Community (NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association)

June 28—Readying Rural Communities to Capture the Benefits of Digitalization (University of Idaho Extension)

July 11—Task Force for Reviewing the Connectivity and Technology Needs of Precision Agriculture (FCC)

July 12––Tribal Workshop Hosted by the Lummi Nation (FCC)

July 13––The Opportunities and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence for Communications Networks and Consumers (FCC)

July 17––Ready or Not? (Ready.net)

July 18—Open Meeting of the Internet of Things Advisory Board

July 20––July 2023 Open Federal Communications Commission Meeting (FCC)

August 20––Fiber Connect 2023 (Fiber Broadband Association)

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Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society
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Wilmette, IL 60091
847-328-3040
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State Profiles

Maine's Vision of Digital Equity

Grace Tepper — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Friday, June 16, 2023

Weekly Digest

Maine's Vision of Digital Equity

Round-Up for the Week of June 12-16, 2023

Tepper

This month, the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA) released the state's draft Digital Equity Plan, which provides a roadmap for Maine's progress toward digital equity moving forward. The plan envisions a Maine where everyone, especially those traditionally underserved and facing more barriers to being connected, can take full advantage of the economic, educational, health, civic, social and other benefits that reliable, affordable, high-speed broadband can provide.

Distinctly, Maine's plan is for everyone to have access to:

Affordable, reliable internet connectivity at home;
An affordable device that meets their needs;
The opportunity to develop digital skills and access technical support;
Tools and information to protect themselves and their families online; and
Online state resources that are inclusive and accessible for all.

Here, we break down the state plan, from Maine's statewide engagement process and findings to its digital equity goals and strategic path to achieving them.

"By connecting everyone and ensuring that Mainers have the support and resources to realize the benefits of that connectivity fully, we can ensure there is a place for everyone to thrive in our economy and communities."

I. Creating the Digital Equity Plan

To create the Digital Equity Plan, the Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA)––a quasi-governmental agency funded through a combination of federal and state resources charged with achieving universal access to affordable high-speed broadband in Maine––and its partners conducted outreach and engagement activities between January and June 2023. Six stakeholder groups comprising 117 individuals, organizations, and agencies contributed to the engagement process. Additionally, three formal tribal consultations were held with the Chiefs and Vice Chiefs of the Mi’kmaq Nation, the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik, and the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township.

The statewide Maine Broadband Survey, available in 12 languages, collected over 3,200 responses online and in hard copy versions. Thirteen focus groups were facilitated by MCA and hosted by organizations that serve or represent the Digital Equity Act's "covered populations." An additional 16 community meetings were held around the state to collect feedback from the general public.

Thirteen regional and tribal broadband partners supported this planning effort, convening 180 digital equity coalition partners, conducting 651 interviews, and creating a digital equity plan for each region and tribal community. MCA and its partners hosted the first-ever Digital Equity Workshop facilitated by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, which brought together 100 participants in early May 2023 and concluded the engagement.

II. Understanding Digital Equity in Maine

Maine faces a perfect storm of challenges in achieving digital equity. The state's remote and rugged terrain makes it one of the most challenging and expensive places to reach with digital infrastructure. As the state with the oldest population in the nation, Maine has a significant population that did not grow up with all of the technology available today. Maine’s median household and per capita income lag behind most other states, too. And almost all Mainers live in small, rural communities with limited resources. These forces combine to shape the contours of the digital divide in Maine.

Barriers to Universal Broadband

Maine's outreach and engagement helped surface many barriers consistently faced by people and communities there. Most community members and covered populations see access to broadband as essential but find it difficult to rely on existing broadband infrastructure.

The quality of internet connections causes frustration for many Mainers, whether because of a slow connection, a lack of capacity to support all the devices and uses, or periodic outages. The Maine Broadband Survey showed that 40 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with their connection.
Internet availability and affordability are primary barriers to digital equity in Maine, especially for the state’s most vulnerable populations. Based on December 2022 data from the Federal Communications Commission, approximately 42,000 locations in Maine have no broadband connection or service of less than 25/3 Megabits per second (Mbps). They account for about 6.5% of the total locations statewide. An additional 52,000 locations (8% of locations) are “unserved,” with service between 25/3 to 100/20 Mbps. A full 61%, or 393,000 locations, have service between 100/20 and 100/100 Mbps and will not be eligible for BEAD funding.
Users of all types are concerned about internet safety and have low levels of comfort in protecting themselves online. In Maine's survey, 93 percent of respondents are concerned about internet safety, focusing on effectively protecting older adults and children. In focus groups, community meetings, and interviews, Maine people named very few resources, tools or sources of information available to bolster their internet safety.
Access to devices is not always considered a barrier, with many people saying they have sufficient devices to meet their needs. However, many describe ongoing issues that could be resolved with improved device access, a newer device, or available technical support. In Maine's survey, just 5 percent of respondents visited a trusted local institution for technical support, most utilized friends, family, or coworkers for support, and more than a quarter simply gave up when they couldn’t fix their device. For many of the covered populations, the cost of the device itself is a barrier.
There is a widespread need for digital skill building, especially among older adults and other covered populations. Covered populations had less confidence in every digital skill category measured in the survey compared to other respondents. People in focus groups and community meetings desired various learning formats, including one-on-one and small groups. Further comments clarified that classes are rarely tailored to specific covered populations and often do not start at an appropriate skill level or use language that people understand.
Most people see the benefit of government resources offered online. Over 92 percent of survey respondents reported using the internet to access government resources, but most find it difficult. Many struggle to use these resources because of a lack of internet service at home or accessibility of the sites, forms, or processes, especially when viewed on a phone or not provided in the user’s first language.

Challenges Faced by Covered Populations

Maine's goal is not just to enable covered populations to survive in bridging the digital divide - but to thrive.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) estimates that 89 percent of Mainers identify as a population likely to be most impacted by the digital divide and are categorized as a covered population under the Digital Equity Act.

According to the Maine broadband survey, 8 percent of respondents in low-income households have no internet compared to 2 percent overall. An unsurprising 77 percent of respondents in low-income households find it difficult to pay for their monthly internet bill. Over 40 percent of respondents in low-income households surveyed enrolled in internet subsidy programs. Nearly 30 percent of respondents in low-income households don't have enough devices to fit their needs [compared to just 11 percent of the overall survey population]. Respondents in low-income households report feeling less confident in job searching, finding health information, and finding educational information, and 20 percent of respondents in low-income households reported that their internet search for government information did not meet their needs well.

Survey respondents in rural areas were more likely to have DSL and less likely to have cable broadband service. And 47 percent said it is somewhat or very difficult to fit the cost of their internet into their budget. Most (65 percent) are paying $70 or more for broadband service each month. While great strides have been made in broadband expansion in Maine, there are rural areas that still need broadband or are in cellular dead zones.

Veterans must access their veterans benefits online and often have a greater frequency of health and mental health visits, or a need to access specific care for veterans. These conditions result in a greater reliance on internet access, devices and skills to access health care and benefits virtually, and veterans often find these processes difficult or don’t have the devices or connection to do so. Veterans who responded to the statewide survey indicated that affordability, access to devices, and digital skills presented significant barriers to digital inclusion: 44 percent of veterans reported at least some difficulty affording monthly internet service and 9 percent of veterans don’t have enough devices in the household. Veterans report feeling less confident than other respondents in 10 of 12 digital skill areas in the survey, including job searching, finding medical or educational information, using email and social media, or using Zoom.

Racial and ethnic minority residents surveyed found it much more difficult to afford monthly internet bills compared to all survey respondents. Nearly a quarter of racial minority residents surveyed reported finding it very difficult to fit their monthly internet bill into their household’s budget compared to 11 percent of the overall population surveyed. Racial minority residents surveyed were much less likely to have enough devices to fit their needs than the survey population.

For individuals with disabilities in Maine, 27 percent surveyed found it very difficult to fit their monthly internet bill into their household budget. Individuals with disabilities are less likely to have enough devices to meet their needs compared to the overall survey population. Individuals with disabilities reported less confidence with all 12 digital skills included in Maine's survey. Only 36 percent of individuals living with disabilities reported that online public resources were very accessible.

Older adults feel less confident with all 12 digital skills in the survey, with the most significant difference in using social media and job searching. Older adults in Maine are not “digital natives” and find it difficult to find digital skills support that meets their needs or starts where they are and uses language that works for them. For older adults, digital skills training and technical support may be best provided one-on-one. Nearly half of older adults find paying for their monthly service difficult. And 8 percent have a dial-up connection, no connection at all, or don’t know where their internet connection comes from.

People with language barriers in Maine who are recent immigrants or asylum seekers are more likely to rely on a phone data plan, hotspot, and/or public wifi for access.(1) There is a significant lack of digital skills training, technical support, and ACP enrollment support in multiple languages. Very few government resources are offered in different languages or, for those with low literacy, in accessible languages. Most people Maine officials met in focus groups and community meetings noted at least some difficulty with accessing government forms or resources online. For those with language barriers, it’s more difficult.

For incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in Maine, access to devices, educational programs, and the internet may vary widely depending on space and device constraints, connectivity to the facility itself, and administration and funding decisions.(2) People in reentry and long-term recovery struggle to gain access to the internet and to afford service, often because of a lack of credit or resources and/or unstable housing. People in reentry typically do not have the device they need because of cost barriers. When people are released, phones are critical, but most don’t know how to use them. The reentry process supported by community organizations does not typically or consistently include any support for accessing devices or technical support. People in reentry and recovery are worried that using the internet could get them in trouble if they click on the wrong link, which they always feel in danger of doing. Internet safety is a significant concern related to the fear of returning to jail/prison and feeling vulnerable online.

Of the Native American population surveyed in Maine, 20 percent indicated that fitting their monthly internet bill into their household budget was very difficult, compared to 11 percent of the overall population surveyed.(3) Over a quarter of Native American individuals surveyed reported not having enough devices to meet their needs. They also have a lower price point for affordable devices. Over 20 percent of Native American individuals surveyed indicated that $250 is too expensive for a computing device. For Tribal members, ACP enrollment is a challenge: many complete ACP enrollment only to find they are not receiving the full $75 tribal benefit, but often the $30 benefit.

III. The State's Digital Equity Goals

Maine's Digital Equity Plan outlines key strategies to address the barriers to access, affordability, and adoption.

1. Create A Foundation for Digital Equity

Maine must invest in the core capacity, tools, and resources to help advance digital equity across the state. These investments must include sustaining digital equity staffing at MCA and adjusting funding programs to ensure that digital equity is used as a lens when making program decisions and prioritizing investments. The digital equity asset inventory, digital equity-focused events, coalition building, and tracking progress and impact are all important to ensure MCA sustains and grows in this work over time. The following actions serve as the basis for developing a digital equity foundation in Maine:

Apply a digital equity lens to infrastructure and program decisions by layering additional data to the Broadband Mapping Platform.
MCA’s Digital Equity Manager, who will work directly with partners and help lead the implementation of digital equity programs outlined in this plan.
The Digital Equity Asset Inventory will be developed as an online resource to provide information about digital inclusion programs and resources for members of the public, digital navigators, and organizational partners.
Coalition building, digital equity events, and ongoing monitoring and progress evaluation are all core activities under this strategy.

2. Leverage Partnerships to Reach Places & People

Maine has many organizational partners and networks that are significant assets to enable digital inclusion programs and activities. The state is intent on reaching every corner of the state geographically while focusing on people and communities who are facing more barriers to being connected. It aims to leverage the work of core digital inclusion organizations with partners serving particular regions or specific covered populations to share best practices and digital inclusion expertise, reaching more people and places. It will be important to embed and align digital inclusion activity into networks that already have relationships with covered populations. To do this, MCA will:

Directly fund partners and design and launch a competitive funding program to support digital inclusion activities that will reach a broad geography and explicitly support the covered populations. This funding will target partner networks which have existing relationships with covered populations, core digital equity partners, and regional and tribal partners;
Fund a Connectivity Hubs program from 2024 to 2026 to support education, workforce and telehealth programming and public access to the internet, devices, and digital skills; and
Support a Tribal Broadband Initiative to support connectivity and digital equity for the Tribes in Maine.

3. Focus on Affordability

Many Mainers find paying for internet service at home challenging. The state needs to focus attention on strategies that can improve affordability, particularly for the covered populations for whom this is a significant barrier. These strategies will involve supporting Affordable Connectivity Program enrollment for more eligible households, researching other local and policy solutions, and launching an apartment wifi program to better connect residents of affordable housing units across the state. MCA will:

Continue to lead and expand enrollment in the Affordable Connectivity Program through the ACP4ME Campaign.
Engage with partners to explore other policy solutions to improve affordability.
Work with the affordable housing community to research, launch, and fund an Affordable Housing Connectivity Program.
Provide support to Maine Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) to enable individuals with disabilities that require assistive technology to transition from analog to digital service by identifying individual locations that need access or providing ACP or other support to those individuals.
Adjust existing infrastructure programs to 1) enable diverse technologies to increase competition and options that lower costs and 2) include requirements for funded infrastructure projects to lower consumer costs.

4. Launch Statewide Education & Information Campaigns

Some critical campaigns need to be coordinated centrally by the State, providing a structure and tools with which various partners can engage and participate. MCA will work with collaborators to design and launch statewide campaigns promoting internet safety and device refurbishment, providing practical tools and resources. The state will also leverage existing tools such as 211 to provide information about digital inclusion programs and resources and work closely with partners in telehealth to promote and share best practices. Lastly, MCA will lead the development of an educational campaign with photographic and video storytelling to illustrate examples of the digital divide and the impact of digital equity on Maine people’s lives. To further this goal, MCA will:

Launch an Internet Safety for ME Campaign with its partners, creating various tools to be employed by trusted partners and leveraging media and law enforcement engagement.
Launch an Affordable Devices for ME Campaign, with partners, that encourages and enables device donation for refurbishment and redistribution to covered populations.
Produce a Digital Equity Story series, including video and photographic storytelling illustrating the impact of the digital divide, examples of digital inclusion programs, and the impact of digital equity on people’s lives and communities.
Leverage Maine 211 and Bendable Maine as broadband and digital equity resources.
Partner with the National Digital Equity Center to support a statewide cohort of digital navigators across organizations and agencies, hosting training and sharing best practices and resources.
Work with the Telehealth and Telemonitoring Advisory Group and other telehealth partners to support telehealth education, best practices, and models to decrease barriers for covered populations.

5. Sustain and Grow Investment in Digital Equity

Maine’s commitment to digital equity means a significant commitment of resources to sustain the state's collective work and tackle a growing digital divide. To put many of these strategies in motion, Maine will need to raise funding well beyond what may be available to its State from the Digital Equity Capacity funding from NTIA. MCA will seek to double the resources to support this work by creating and raising funds for a Digital Equity Fund, providing support for partners seeking other funding sources, and tracking the impact of the Authority's collective work to help make a case for further investment. MCA will more than double NTIA’s investment in Maine by launching a $15 million Digital Equity Fund to support the strategies outlined in this plan. MCA will work with partners to secure resources from various partners, including private sector partners, ISPs, philanthropy, and additional state & federal funding sources.

IV. Measurable Objectives

Through the strategies and associated activities outlined above, MCA expects to achieve the following measurable impacts toward achieving digital equity in Maine.

1. Improve Access to Broadband

Every Mainer who wants an internet connection at home can get one. MCA will invest in infrastructure that reaches the 42,000 homes and businesses that remain with no connection (25/3 Mbps or less) as of December 2022—or approximately 6.5 percent of potential subscriber locations. In addition, Maine will work to improve service to 52,000 locations with unreliable & slow service below 100/20 Mbps.

2. Increase Affordability of Internet Service

The state aims to increase enrollment in the Affordable Connectivity Program by 64,000, going from 27 percent of eligible households in 2022 to 54 percent of eligible households by 2029. This will help to increase the percentage of people who pay $60 or less for internet service from 25 to 50 percent.

3. Ensure Access to Affordable Devices (& Tech Support)

Maine will distribute 50,000 free or low-cost devices that meet the user’s needs to covered populations (refurbished & new), and secure 25,000 donated devices from businesses, institutions, and agencies to be refurbished. The state will also improve access to and awareness of technical support by reducing the percentage of people who couldn’t fix their device by 10 percent; doubling the percentage of people who receive help from an institutional partner (library, school, etc.) from 5 to 10 percent; and ensure 100 percent of devices distributed include technical support.

4. Improve Mainers’ Digital Skills

Maine will provide 10,000 people with a digital skills assessment. Through this, at least 50 percent of people accessing digital skills assessment and skills training will achieve the individual goal to be established during their assessment or achieve a basic digital skill level. This will also improve the digital skills confidence of covered populations with the largest gaps. Maine will help to improve low confidence levels reported by covered populations across all skills by 10 percent.

5. Help Mainers Stay Safe Online

The state is shooting to reach at least 25,000 Mainers with internet safety outreach and education programming. Mainers’ confidence in finding tools to protect their personal data will be improved, with the goal being to increase the percentage of survey respondents who say they are very confident in finding tools to protect their personal data from 28 percent to 40 percent. Within this area, the state also aims to increase the percentage of people very familiar with maintaining their safety online from 39 to 50 percent.

6. Make it Easier to Access Government Resources & Programs Online

Maine will complete a user-focused accessibility audit on critical state resources used most by covered populations, and improve the digital skill confidence of covered populations in accessing government services online. Just 42 percent say they are very confident accessing or applying for government services online; Maine will improve this to at least 50 percent overall.

7. Sustain and Grow Investments

The state will raise $15 million for a Maine Digital Equity Fund to match the investment by NTIA.

V. Maine Wants to Hear From You

The Maine Connectivity Authority released its draft Digital Equity Plan on June 9, 2023. Public comments on Maine's draft digital equity plan can be submitted using this form until June 30, 2023. MCA will reflect on all that it has heard from individuals, communities and partners and revise the plan before submitting it to NTIA on August 1st.

Notes

1. This population was not explicitly identified within Maine's survey. These barriers are gleaned from focus group and community meeting findings.

2. This population was not explicitly identified in Maine's survey. These barriers are gleaned from focus group findings. MCA did not directly survey or meet with currently incarcerated individuals because of its Human Subjects Research restrictions; people in reentry were its primary focus.

3. More Native respondents reported having fiber internet service because a large proportion of the survey responses were generated in a tribal community where a fiber build has just been completed.

Quick Bits

Weekend Reads (resist tl;dr)

ICYMI from Benton

Upcoming Events

June 21—Closing the Digital Divide in Rural America (House Agriculture Committee)

June 21—Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission (House Commerce Committee)

June 26—Smart Rural Community (NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association)

June 28—Readying Rural Communities to Capture the Benefits of Digitalization (University of Idaho Extension)

July 11—Task Force for Reviewing the Connectivity and Technology Needs of Precision Agriculture (FCC)

July 18—Open Meeting of the Internet of Things Advisory Board

August 20––Fiber Connect 2023 (Fiber Broadband Association)

Oct 2-6—Digital Inclusion Week 2023 (National Digital Inclusion Alliance)

For subscribe/unsubscribe info, please email headlinesATbentonDOTorg

Kevin Taglang
Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society
1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214
Wilmette, IL 60091
847-328-3040
headlines AT benton DOT org

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Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities

Series:

State Profiles

What did NTIA's Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth Accomplish in 2022?

Grace Tepper — Fri, 19 May 2023 20:32:14 +0000

Friday, May 19, 2023

Weekly Digest

What did NTIA's Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth Accomplish in 2022?

Round-Up for the Week of May 15-19

Tepper

The Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth (OICG) is housed within the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Congress created OICG in the ACCESS BROADBAND Act of 2021, part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, to oversee all broadband activity at NTIA and lead federal efforts to fund and expand broadband access across the country. On May 8, 2023, OICG released its 2022 Annual Report detailing the work it accomplished as it administers the federal broadband grant programs established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 as well as NTIA’s broadband technical assistance programs that facilitate access to affordable, high-speed Internet service.

OICG is led by Associate Administrator Douglas Kinkoph and employs approximately 130 people across 38 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

The Critical Role of Federal Programs Officers in Advancing Universal Broadband

With the establishment of the Broadband Equity, Access, And Deployment (BEAD) and the Digital Equity (DE) Act Programs in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, OICG initiated the hiring of Federal Programs Officers (FPOs) to cover all 50 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. FPOs serve as liaisons between OICG and the broadband offices for the states and territories. FPOs serve as subject-matter experts and as connections between local stakeholders and NTIA, encouraging community engagement. In addition, FPOs monitor the work performed on the grant awards in their jurisdiction, create relationships, and act as a conduit to the federal government for the IIJA grant programs.

NTIA hired 117 new OICG employees in 2022, including 13 in leadership roles.

Funding Broadband Infrastructure and Digital Inclusion Efforts

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) authorized eight broadband grant programs, providing investments to bring high-speed and affordable Internet service to everyone in the U.S. As administrator of these grant programs, OICG provides support, technical assistance, and funding to deploy these historic investments. In 2022, NTIA awarded over $2.3 billion in funding through these programs.

From August 30 to September 1, 2022, NTIA organized and hosted an initial FPO Broadband Academy, a three-day internal training opportunity for newly hired NTIA FPOs and other NTIA staff. The Academy, held in Washington (DC), provided training in broadband infrastructure, deployment, and adoption, as well as the NTIA Internet for All broadband grant programs for over 150 staff members. NTIA organized the FPO Broadband Academy event to help give the FPOs the tools and resources they needed to start building relationships with state and local stakeholders, speak at events, and advance the agency’s effort for an on-the-ground approach to the Internet for All programs.

NTIA also established the Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives (OMBI) within OICG, as directed by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, to promote equitable broadband access to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), and their communities across the country.

Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program is providing states and territories with funding to connect unserved locations, specifically those that have no Internet access or access under 25/3 Megabits per second (Mbps), and underserved locations that only have access under 100/20 Mbps. Congress allocated $42.45 billion to the BEAD Program to expand high-speed Internet access by funding planning, infrastructure deployment, and adoption programs. In 2022, all eligible states and territories submitted Letters of Intent (LOI) to participate in the program. These eligible entities then submitted subsequent applications for up to $5 million in initial planning funds, with OICG disbursing planning funds totaling $254.5 million.

Digital Equity Act

The Digital Equity Act of 2021, also part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, established three grant programs totaling $2.75 billion. These programs aim to provide the skills, technology, and capacity needed for all people and communities to reap the full benefits of the digital economy.

The State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program is a $60 million formula grant program for states, territories, and Tribal governments to develop digital equity plans. The application window closed on July 12, 2022, with all 52 eligible Digital Equity applicants submitting applications for Digital Equity Planning Funds. Additionally, the four eligible territories and 467 Tribes, 81 percent of all federally recognized Tribes from 29 states submitted LOI for Digital Equity planning funds.
The State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program is a $1.44 billion formula grant program for states, territories, and Tribal governments. It will fund an annual grant program for five years in support of digital equity projects and the implementation of State Digital Equity Plans. These funds will be allocated based on the formula provided in the Digital Equity Act and used to implement the plans developed through the State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program.
The Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program is a $1.25 billion grant program that will fund annual grant programs for five years. This program will develop and implement digital inclusion activities and Digital Equity projects. The program is open to certain entities, such as political subdivisions of states, Tribal entities, nonprofits, community anchor institutions, local educational agencies, and workforce development organizations. OICG expects to release the Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Digital Equity Competitive Grants in 2024, after awarding the first State Digital Equity Capacity Grant.

On March 1, 2023, NTIA sought public comment on the design and implementation of the State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program and the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program. The deadline for submissions was May 1, 2023.

In 2022, OICG provided 62 technical assistance events and resources, held, ten Digital Equity Leaders Network events and webinars, and released $53 million in Digital Equity Planning Funds.

Enabling Middle Mile Infrastructure Program

The Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program provides $1 billion to expand middle-mile internet infrastructure and reduce the cost of connecting unserved and underserved areas. The Middle Mile Program is key to increasing the resilience of internet infrastructure by promoting the creation of alternate network connection paths designed to prevent single-point broadband network failures. The Middle Mile team used OICG’s notable virtual presence to reach as many stakeholders as possible, hosting 12 office hours with 1,547 people and organizations.

OICG received over 235 applications requesting more than $5.5 billion for the program. NTIA will complete the review and selection so that rolling award announcements can be made in 2023.

Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program

The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) is a $3 billion grant program directed to Tribal governments to be used for broadband deployment on Tribal lands, as well as for telehealth, distance learning, broadband affordability, and digital inclusion.

The TBCP was created by Congress in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 as a $1 billion program. In the initial application window, OICG received over 300 applications requesting over $5 billion from the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. In recognition of the overwhelming need shown by TBCP applications, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided $2 billion in additional funding.

In 2022, OICG awarded 132 grants totaling $1.73 billion. These awards, once complete, will connect approximately 142,000 Tribal households and 1,680 anchor institutions. The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program continues to announce additional awards on a rolling basis. In 2023, OICG expects to release an additional Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program Notice of Funding Opportunity to distribute the remaining $1 billion in IIJA funds.

Broadband Infrastructure Program

The Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP) is a $300 million broadband deployment program that supports broadband infrastructure deployment in areas lacking broadband, especially rural areas. What sets the Broadband Infrastructure Program apart from other federal funding initiatives is its focus on "covered partnerships" as recipients of its funding–that is, a public-private partnership between a state or subdivision(s) of a state and a provider of fixed broadband service.

The application window for this program closed in August 2021, with more than 275 applications requesting over $2.8 billion in grants. NTIA granted 13 BIP awards in February 2022 and one in June 2022, totaling $288 million in funding. The 14 awards allocated the entirety of the grant funds from this program. Construction on these projects is underway, with more than 140,000 unserved households expected to be connected.

Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program

The Connecting Minority Communities (CMC) Pilot Program is a $285 million grant program available to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) for the purchase of broadband internet service, eligible equipment, and the hiring and training of information technology (IT) personnel.

In 2022, NTIA awarded 19 Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program grants totaling over $51.99 million. In 2022, NTIA continued to review the more than 200 applications received during the application window, which closed in December 2021. Additional awards were announced on a rolling basis.

Some CMC Program awardees include:

North Carolina Central University in Durham (NC), with a grant of almost $3 million;
Diné College in Tsaile (AZ), with $2.9 million in awards;
Mount Saint Mary's in Los Angeles (CA), with $747,000 in grant awards; and
Drake State Community and Technical College in Huntsville (AL), with $2.4 million in grant funds.

Leveraging Data for Decision Making

Expanding high-speed internet access requires aggregating robust data sets that enable the OICG to effectively make inclusive and equitable program management decisions. OICG collaborates with public stakeholders–FCC, NTIA, and the Census–as well as private sources–M-Lab, Ookla, and Microsoft–to gather and distribute data on broadband access in the US and federal efforts to close the digital divide.

Interagency Agreement to Share and Collaborate on Data

In a measure to prevent duplication of funding and support interagency collaboration, NTIA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on May 12, 2022 to govern the exchange of broadband data. In 2022, NTIA, FCC, USDA, and Treasury held 24 scheduled meetings.

The agencies consult with one another regularly and share data collected from programs administered by the FCC, the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service, NTIA, and Treasury’s Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund and State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund.

NTIA Internet Use Survey

For nearly 30 years, the NTIA Internet Use Survey has provided valuable data to policymakers about the state of the internet and technology device use in the United States. Many researchers, advocates, and stakeholders also use the survey to better inform their work. The 2021 Internet Use Survey, released in May 2022, represents the first comprehensive federal data on the evolution of internet usage in America since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Major findings from the 2021 Internet Use Survey include:

Overall, 69 percent of Americans lived in a household with both fixed and mobile internet services, compared with 67 percent in 2019 and 65 percent in 2017.
34 percent of people in households with family incomes under $25,000 per year had no internet service subscriptions at all In 2017, compared with 26 percent in 2021.
Internet use among White non-Hispanics was unchanged at 82 percent from 2019 to 2021, but increased from 75 percent to 77 percent during this period among both African Americans and Hispanics.
One of the largest changes was in the use of smart TVs and TV-connected devices, which increased from 41 percent of Americans in 2019 to 48 percent in 2021.

The NTIA Data Explorer, a clearinghouse of survey data, enables easy tracking of metrics and helps guide important policy choices related to digital equity and other priorities.

Indicators of Broadband Need Map

In 2021, NTIA released the Indicators of Broadband Need Map, which displays key measures of broadband needs across the country. The publicly available map compiles data from both public and private sources on one easy-to-understand interface. It aggregates data at the county, census tract, and census block level from the U.S. Census Bureau, the FCC, M-Lab, Ookla, and Microsoft. Speed-test data provided by M-Lab and Ookla help illustrate the reality that communities experience when going online, with many parts of the country reporting speeds that fall below the FCC’s current benchmark for fixed broadband service of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload.

The map also puts poverty and lack of broadband access on the same page. The dataset allows you to see where high-poverty communities are located and how that relates to internet usage patterns, as well as to a lack of computers and related equipment. The map also shows usage patterns in tribal communities, which have historically suffered from a lack of internet access. Users can toggle the separate data sets on and off to compare information and search for specific locations, including Tribal lands and minority-serving institutions, to gain a better understanding of where broadband needs are greatest.

The National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM)

NTIA offers a mapping platform called the National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) to state governments and federal partners. This platform provides more complex tools for analyzing broadband access, such as uploading geographic files to compare proposed projects and allowing states and others to better inform broadband projects and funding decisions. The NBAM includes data from the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Economic Development Administration, the Minority Business Development Agency, the Census, USDA, FCC, Treasury, Ookla, M-Lab, the Northern Border Regional Commission, BroadbandNow, White Star, and state governments. Users, including administrators from 39 participating states, three territories, and eight federal agencies, access the NBAM mapping platform and use these data resources to better inform broadband projects and funding decisions.

FCC Broadband Funding Map

The IIJA directs the FCC to develop “an online mapping tool to provide a locations overview of the overall geographic footprint of each broadband infrastructure deployment project funded by the Federal Government.” The FCC’s Broadband Funding Map will be “the centralized, authoritative source of information on funding made available by the Federal Government for broadband infrastructure deployment in the United States.”

Over the past year, OICG provided input to the FCC to assist in the development of this resource, including advising on the necessary functionality, data elements, and processes. In its interagency coordination role, OICG also facilitated meetings between the FCC and other government agencies that fund broadband infrastructure to provide similar input.

U.S. Census Bureau’s Digital Equity Act Population Viewer

NTIA works with the Census and its data to better inform digital equity funding programs. Census released the Digital Equity Act Population Viewer, an interactive collection of maps that highlight various demographics and broadband internet availability and adoption by state. The Population Viewer shows the size of Digital Equity Act-defined covered populations in each state, alongside the percentage of the population lacking fixed broadband, lacking computer and/or broadband subscription, those not using the internet, and those not using a device. The map also provides additional information about each of the eight covered populations.

The eight covered populations are individuals who live in covered households; aging individuals (60 or above); incarcerated individuals; veterans; individuals with disabilities, individuals with a language barrier; Individuals who are members of a racial or ethnic minority group; and individuals who primarily reside in a rural area.

Facilitating Interagency and Stakeholder Coordination to Build Community Capacity

OICG leads NTIA’s collaboration efforts across Federal agencies and with external stakeholders to coordinate initiatives that increase access to high-speed internet across the country. OICG works with the Federal Funding Workstream, State Broadband Leaders Network, Digital Equity Leaders Network, Tribal nations, industry, and local governments to provide support, technical assistance, and expertise as it works to close the digital divide.

Federal Funding Workstream Meetings

Federal Funding Workstream meetings provide Federal agencies a forum to share information on their broadband efforts and programs. Co-chaired by NTIA and USDA, these meetings promote coordination across the Federal government on broadband deployment and digital inclusion efforts. In 2022, OICG hosted 25 Federal Funding Workstream meetings, with 26 agencies participating and receiving follow-up materials after the call.

State Broadband Leaders Network

The State Broadband Leaders Network (SBLN) is a community of practitioners who work on increasing broadband deployment and access at the state level. OICG coordinates the group and convenes participants to share priorities and best practices, discuss emerging telecommunications policy issues, link states and local jurisdictions to federal agencies and funding sources, and address barriers to collaboration across states and agencies. Through 2022, OICG held 20 meetings (virtually and in-person). These meetings included representatives from all 56 eligible states and territories and the newly hired NTIA Federal Program Officers (FPO) participating in the meetings and summits.

Digital Equity Leaders Network

The Digital Equity Leaders Network (DELN) is a community of practitioners focused on increasing digital equity, digital inclusion, and access at the local, county, state, regional, and community levels. Participants include staff from local, regional, and state digital equity and broadband offices. DELN provides a monthly forum to strengthen policy and program connections among local and state jurisdictions and federal agencies to improve funding coordination, align policies, and strengthen collaboration across stakeholders. In 2022, the Digital Equity Leaders Network hosted 10 virtual meetings representing 90 local, regional, and state governments.

Tribal Broadband Leaders Network

The Tribal Broadband Leaders Network (TBLN) is a community of practitioners dedicated to expanding connectivity on Tribal lands. More than 130 participants, representing more than 70 Tribes and Tribal Entities, attended the first network meeting on October 13, 2022. The Tribal Broadband Leaders Network will allow NTIA to receive ongoing feedback on the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) while connecting Tribal leaders across the country to share priorities and best practices, discuss emerging telecommunications policy issues, and identify engagement strategies with state broadband leaders. Additionally, in August 2022, NTIA and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) announced an agreement to coordinate responsibilities to deploy high-speed internet service quickly and safeguard Native lands and interests. Given the BIA’s role in the permitting processes and as the executive branch’s intermediary with Tribal entities, NTIA and BIA meet regularly to ensure effective coordination.

Industry Engagement

OICG is working with industry and American manufacturers to prepare the domestic manufacturing supply chain for the required fiber, electronics, and equipment needed
for broadband infrastructure deployment. In 2022, NTIA began work to secure commitments from the industry to build needed manufacturing capacity, holding 14 supply chain industry engagement events. OICG also coordinates with the Office of Management and Budget to provide a streamlined process of informational support to industry-critical suppliers. A key priority in the planning and post-grant phase is assessing manufacturing capacity risks and building manufacturing capacity to ensure equitable access in areas of need.

Quick Bits

Leadership Conference Pens Letter in Support of the Affordable Connectivity Program (Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights)
States Getting Ready to Spend Broadband and Digital Equity Dollars (Pew Charitable Trusts)
NTIA Commits Nearly $5 Million in Internet for All Grants to Tribal Lands (NTIA)
Treasury Department To Give Awards to Connect More Families and Businesses to High-Speed Internet (US Department of the Treasury)
Sens Luján and Thune Announce Bipartisan Working Group on the Universal Service Fund and Broadband Access (US Senate)

Weekend Reads (resist tl;dr)

FCC Releases Broadband Funding Map (FCC)
FCC Moves Forward on 12 GHz Proceeding (FCC)
Treasury Releases SLFRF and CPF Supplementary Broadband Guidance (US Department of the Treasury)
Biden-⁠Harris Administration Kicks off Infrastructure Week by Highlighting Progress Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure 18 Months In (White House)
Emergency Connectivity Fund Guidance for End of Emergency Period (FCC)

ICYMI from Benton

Upcoming Events

May 22—Indigenous Connectivity Summit 2023 (Connect Humanity)

May 23––Digital Skills and Workforce Development (NTIA)

May 25—The Intersection of Research & Education Networks and Sustainable Digital Equity Initiatives (Marconi Society)

June 5—RightsCon Costa Rica (AccessNow)

June 5—UTC Telecom & Technology Conference (Utilities Technology Council)

June 8—June 2023 Open FCC Meeting

June 26—Smart Rural Community (NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association)

July 12––State Digital Equity Plans (NTIA)

August 20––Fiber Connect 2023 (Fiber Broadband Association)

For subscribe/unsubscribe info, please email headlinesATbentonDOTorg

Kevin Taglang
Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society
1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214
Wilmette, IL 60091
847-328-3040
headlines AT benton DOT org

Share this edition:

Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities

North Carolina Central University Trains Digital Equity Leadership in Durham

Grace Tepper — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 17:35:00 +0000

Monday, December 5, 2022

Digital Beat

North Carolina Central University Trains Digital Equity Leadership in Durham

Tepper

Durham, North Carolina, is a thriving digital equity ecosystem supported by a network of community anchor institutions working to close the digital divide. North Carolina Central University (NCCU), a historically black university (HBCU) in Durham, is committed to diversity in and access to higher education through its motto "Truth and Service." The university has long understood that access to digital tools is a crucial part of empowering its students and its community. That is why North Carolina Central University applied for, and recently won, a Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The support will help NCCU address the lack of broadband access, connectivity, adoption, and equity at the university and surrounding anchor communities. NCCU’s combination of innovative digital inclusion initiatives and established community partnerships makes it an invaluable force in closing the city's digital divide.

According to the North Carolina Department of Information Technology's Broadband Adoption Index, 10 percent of households in Durham County did not have internet access and 25 percent did not have a broadband internet subscription as of 2019. Fifteen percent of the county lives in poverty.

“Durham is a really interesting place," said Jon Gant, the dean of NCCU’s School of Library and Information Sciences. “We sit here in the Research Triangle Park between all three of these cities. It's a community that is very focused on research and education coupled with a very strong tech community. There is a really diverse economy.”

The Research Triangle describes the metropolitan region of North Carolina formed by Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. There are a total of 12 colleges and universities and eight community colleges in the Triangle Region, and it is a space of abundant growth and opportunity fueled by its numerous institutions of higher education. NCCU, in Durham, is right in the middle of it.

NCCU's surrounding community is emblematic of the inequities of the segregated South, systemic inequities that are still present today and influence technology adoption trends in Durham.

“We still see that bifurcation in the economy, with these great jobs that are coming into some areas with some of the most entrenched poverty in the country,” said Dean Gant. "Some neighborhoods could be a million miles away from each other, and different in terms of their history."

The North Carolina Broadband Adoption Index has a wealth of information about the variations in broadband access and adoption in Durham, down to the census tract level. It also gives each tract a "Broadband Adoption Potential score" which encompasses a host of factors, including, but not limited to, the percentage of households with broadband access, the percentage with a broadband subscription, the percentage with computer devices, and the percentage in poverty. According to the index, census tracts in Durham with Broadband Adoption Potential scores of 22 percent (meaning low adoption, low affordability, low access to devices, and high poverty) border tracts with scores of almost 70 percent, indicating the near opposite just blocks away.

“That’s the context in which we work, said Grant. “NCCU is in a part of Durham that was segregated. So when we look at the digital divide, there are neighborhoods where there are still census tracts with high levels of poverty coupled with high levels of lack of computer use and adoption. There's a divide when you break it down by race––and also when you break it down by age––that's pretty significant."

NCCU has gained national recognition from the Carnegie Foundation as a community-engaged university. The university is well aware of the unmet needs of its students and members of its greater community. Given the stark digital divide surrounding NCCU, and the university's dedication to service, it is no surprise that it has long been engaging in digital equity initiatives in Durham which are making an impact.

The university is part of Digital Durham, a National Digital Inclusion Alliance-affiliated collaborative that promotes digital inclusion throughout the city by advocating for reliable, affordable internet access and computing devices, along with digital literacy training. Since 2016, Digital Durham has been working to align digital equity programs in the community, collect data on Durham's digital divide, increase educational and advocacy opportunities regarding digital inclusion in Durham and North Carolina, and provide professional development for its member organizations.

In September 2022, NCCU launched the North Carolina Shared Research & Education collaborative infrastructure (NCShare) with Davidson College, Duke University, and MCNC (a nonprofit that owns and operates the North Carolina Research and Education Network). Funded with a $1.4 million award by the National Science Foundation, NCShare aims to provide high-speed research network capacity, support high-performance computing, and boost STEM education to at least eight minority-serving, smaller, or mid-sized institutions of higher education throughout North Carolina.

On October 5, 2022, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration awarded NCCU a Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program grant of almost $3 million to launch the NCCU Digital Equity Leadership Program (DELP-Durham).

An “anchor community” is any area that is not more than 15 miles from an HBCU, a Tribal College or University, or a Minority-serving institution, and has an estimated median annual household income of not more than 250 percent of the poverty line.

NCCU is employing its resources, capabilities, and expertise in digital literacy and extensive reach into the community to develop innovative ways to help residents in Durham's anchor communities who may lack the digital literacy skills needed to seek, obtain, and retain employment, as well as to perform other tasks in daily life. Community-based partners involved in DELP-Durham include Digital Durham and the Kramden Institute, the Durham Public Schools Foundation, the Triangle Non-Profit & Volunteer Leadership Center, as well as the Durham County Library. NCCU has also partnered with Momentum Learning to provide competency-based training in coding.

Essentially, the program is structured under four core activities: digital equity assessment and planning; digital equity training; community engagement and service; and evaluation.

NCCU and Digital Durham will conduct an assessment of digital equity needs related to online education, digital inclusion, workforce, and digital skills development in the anchor communities in Durham. NCCU will also address data equity issues and develop a map-based data repository with publicly available data about broadband access and the digital divide to support this assessment.

The digital equity training portion is a multi-organization collaboration consisting of interrelated activities to serve the needs of the qualified anchor communities in Durham. NCCU is partnering with the Kramden Institute and the Triangle Neighborhood Volunteer Leadership Center to provide educational programs, using NCCU's computer labs and learning spaces for training as well as computer labs in community centers and public housing and mobile labs.

Through the mobile labs, Gant said, members of anchor communities can access devices, Wi-Fi hotspots, and mobile educational programs. This enables access to many digital tools like online banking, telehealth appointments, and employment opportunities. There is also office space for people to do private and professional job interviews. NCCU will also partner with other community anchor institutions, like faith-based institutions, to run events and programming where needed.

“NCCU’s great because we have a very open university to our surrounding community and we have a great reputation within our town," said Gant, who is leading the DELP-Durham initiative. "It's easy to invite folks to come to campus, but we're going to get out to even be closer to where people live, to be able to provide the training and support.”

The university is also collaborating with the Durham County Library and the Durham Public Schools Foundation to scale up digital navigator services to residents from eligible anchor communities. NCCU will provide students with the resources to serve its community through volunteering and community engagement to expand experiential learning and workforce development. As part of this, NCCU is taking students from its library and information science, education, social work, and computer science and information systems programs and developing a model to train students with the skills to train other navigators. The navigator program will be fully credentialed, and will train both students and "anyone who wants to learn," Gant said.

“It's central to get students and faculty out into our neighboring community," Gant said. “One of the things that I've learned is to be a good steward and always work with the community. Not directing from the academia to the community, but with the community.”

NCCU's mission statement says that the institution will “prepare students to become global leaders and practitioners who transform communities.”

NCCU is partnering with Momentum Learning to provide software engineering, quality assurance engineering, and digital foundations for business and entrepreneurship courses and provide employment placement services in collaboration with companies. This enables people to participate in the growing technology sector in the Research Triangle, especially those looking to switch careers.

The university's Office of Community Engagement and Services will also partner with Triangle Nonprofit and Volunteer Leadership Center on outreach initiatives to expand opportunities to deepen the digital capabilities of supporting organizations in the qualified anchor community neighborhoods.

Through all of these interconnecting programs, NCCU and its partners hope to expand employment opportunities, train digital navigators, and help deepen the digital capabilities of residents and organizations in Durham's anchor communities.

Since the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program grant was announced, NCCU has wasted no time. The university is hiring 12 full-time staff members to help implement DELP-Durham and is in the process of procuring all the necessary equipment and devices. As for the curriculum for its digital navigator training and educational programs, Gant said there is already a lot of programming set up with community partners which is a big advantage.

The DELP-Durham curriculum draws from successful initiatives in Durham's current digital equity sphere as does NCCU's outreach programs to raise awareness of what it is doing. The university is working with Durham's library and school systems to reach students and parents who may benefit from DELP-Durham through multilingual awareness campaigns. NCCU's Office of Community Engagement and Service is well-connected to the community and is helping to set up outreach programs.

Evaluation of the program is a key step in DELP-Durham's work. First, the evaluation will examine the program implementation process to determine whether it is operating as intended. This will be achieved by measuring program activities and outputs to determine what was accomplished. Secondly, the evaluation will critically examine the program to identify strengths and challenges to implementation to improve the program and, ultimately, ensure program effectiveness.

Erezi Ogbo—Assistant Professor in Information Science at NCCU and Director of Data, Assessment, and Evaluation for DELP-Durham—said success in digital equity initiatives can be measured in a variety of ways. One important to DELP-Durham, in particular, is employment opportunity and economic mobility.

"Income is one of the key factors that we should see a change in," she said. "If you have digital equity in a community, then we should see things like employment rates going up. People should be able to not just be connected, but be able to use the connection to get jobs. You should also see the median income going up. It's not just getting jobs, but getting good jobs and being able to bring home better pay."

Gant said, “We're seeing, because of the level of poverty in certain neighborhoods, there are high levels of negative impacts from that with a greater proportion of folks with poor health conditions, environmental justice issues, and chronic unemployment. Those are things that we have to try and address. And that's why our focus is really on not only gaining [digital] skills, but helping to develop the skills to make a shift in those very particular types of outcomes.”

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Kevin Taglang
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A Year One Update on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Connecting Tribal Communities

Grace Tepper — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 12:00:07 +0000

Monday, November 28, 2022

Digital Beat

A Year One Update on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Connecting Tribal Communities

The digital divide on Tribal lands includes broadband access, adoption, and application. On June 22, 2022, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released an assessment of federal efforts to increase Tribal broadband internet connectivity in the U.S. In the report, the GAO observed that connectivity in Tribal nations still lags behind the United States significantly and that Tribal Nations need more resources to overcome barriers to sustainable broadband access, adoption and application on their lands.

The first big investment to bridge this divide came in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress created the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program and provided it with $1 billion in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, signed by President Donald Trump in December 2020. But Congress soon realized the digital divide on Tribal Lands could not be bridged with just $1 billion.

On June 3, 2021, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) with an application deadline of September 1, 2021. The grant funds could be used for:

(A) Broadband infrastructure deployment projects, including support for the establishment of carrier-neutral submarine cable landing stations; and

(B) Projects that promote the adoption and use of broadband services, including:

(i) affordable broadband programs, such as providing free or reduced-cost broadband
service and preventing disconnection of existing broadband service;

(ii) distance learning;

(iii) telehealth;

(iv) digital inclusion efforts; and

(v) broadband adoption activities.

One week after the September deadline, NTIA announced that it had received over 280 applications for over $5 billion in funding from Tribal entities. Because of the immense need expressed by program applicants, Congress added $2 billion for the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and made some program enhancements that allow grantees more time to deploy broadband networks and help more people get online.

Grantees now have 18 months to commit funds to an approved project, instead of the original six. They also have four years to expend all grant funding, instead of one, and any unused funds from the program are to be put towards other Tribal broadband projects rather than reverting back to the U.S. Treasury.

Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program Awards

NTIA is awarding Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program grants on a rolling basis. The NTIA announced the first three awards on November 16, 2021. The program has since awarded $1.5 billion to 112 Tribal entities in 11 different states across the U.S.—Alaska, Arizona, California, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, South Dakota, and Virginia. Some of the many program awards include:

Hoopa Valley Tribe, California: The $65,140,407 broadband infrastructure deployment project will further efforts to install fiber and wireless networks to directly connect over 1,000 unserved households, 64 businesses, and 19 community anchor institutions with fiber-to-the-home broadband. The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program mandates that projects provide of at least 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload speeds. The project will also help construct a Tribal data center, install a tower, and provide workforce development training. The project intends to benefit unserved Native American households, Tribal businesses, Tribal community anchor institutions, Tribal members that participate in workforce development training, and all Hoopa Valley members that utilize Tribal services. Visit here to read about how Hoopa Valley has been working to close its digital divide.

Santa Fe Indian School Pueblo Education Network, New Mexico: The $57,298,683 broadband infrastructure deployment project aims to install fiber connecting the 700 students in grades 7-12 from the 19 Pueblos, Navajo and Apache Tribes of New Mexico, Zuni Tribe, Pueblo of Acoma, Pueblo of Isleta, Pueblo of Jemez, Pueblo of Santo Domingo, and the Pueblo of Zia with fiber-to-the-home 1 Gbps/1 Gbps service. Through this project, the school network will connect multiple rural Tribal lands in New Mexico cost-effectively and increase Tribal participation in the global digital economy. Creating a private education network connecting Tribal Pre-K-20 schools and libraries to each other and to national research and education networks will increase enrollment in online classes and increase educational attainment, including increasing the pursuit of post-secondary degrees.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Montana: The $41,572,831 broadband infrastructure deployment project will install fiber and wireless to directly connect 927 unserved Tribal households, 36 unserved Tribal businesses, and 22 unserved Tribal community anchor institutions with a minimum of 30 Mbps/5 Mbps and up to 1 Gbps qualifying broadband service. The project will open opportunities for telehealth care services, online educational opportunities, workforce development, telecommuting, and digital and financial literacy. It will also establish a CSKT Tribe-owned broadband Internet service accessible to all Native households, businesses, and anchor institutions on the Reservation. The project will help to remove the affordability barrier and be 100 percent carrier-neutral.

Alaska Federation of Natives Broadband Use and Adoption Consortium, Alaska: This $35,102,141 broadband use and adoption project consists of a consortium consisting of 73 Alaska Native Tribal governments, Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs), and Tribal organizations to reduce barriers to broadband usage among Native Alaskans by providing broadband-enabled devices, subsidizing broadband service, and implementing digital skills and workforce training. It will also seek to improve healthcare access among Tribal communities by equipping Alaska Tribal health partners with the equipment and training needed to offer telehealth services. This project will serve 62 Alaskan Native communities or ANCs, provide subsidized Internet service for an estimated 2,777 Alaskan Native households, provide broadband devices to an estimated 8,877 individuals, and employ and train 10 IT technicians.

Suquamish Tribe of the Port Madison Reservation, Washington: The $1,093,384 broadband use and adoption project will improve community anchor institutions' digital readiness and the development of workforce training and digital literacy programs aimed to increase digital inclusion among Tribal members. The implementation of this project will enable broadband adoption activities, including telehealth, distance learning, affordable broadband programs, workforce development, and digital inclusion efforts. Through this, the project expects to improve broadband access and service for all 6,536 Port Madison Indian Reservation residents. Tribal youth will gain digital literacy and workforce development skills while Tribal households will gain better access to telehealth services, distance learning, and workforce development programs.

The full list of Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program awardees can be found here.

Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program

The NTIA also administers the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program, a $268 million grant program to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) for the purchase of broadband internet access service and eligible equipment or to hire and train information technology personnel. Established by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, the pilot program is distributing grants to facilitate educational instruction, including remote instruction. Applications for the pilot program were received in 2021. NTIA announced awardees in July and October 2022. Grants were made to:

Dine College’s CONNECT NAVAJO project aims to improve educational and economic opportunity on the Navajo Nation by improving internet access, providing more hardware, and investing in IT staff. This project will ensure that the Diné people can continue to reside in their homes on Navajo Nation and benefit from access to technology that helps them earn academic credentials and enter economically rewarding and personally fulfilling careers.

See Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology Connects Rural Students and Trains Fiber Technicians

Through the Student Success and Increasing Minority Workforce Participation Program, Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology (OSUIT) aims to be a proactive participant within its community to decrease the digital divide and enhance access to broadband services as well as increase the talent pipeline for Oklahoma’s telecommunications industry. It will address two critical issues being faced by Oklahoma’s rural communities: (1) The availability of broadband services in Oklahoma’s low-income communities, and 2) A lack of skilled workers and high-quality training programs available for Fiber Technicians in Oklahoma’s low-income, rural communities.

The Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCC) Hewel Wepegi Macidag kc, wog - ‘Learning the Internet Road’ is designed to directly address the lack of broadband access, connectivity, adoption and equity at the college and in the surrounding anchor communities on Tohono O’odham Nation (TON). The overarching goal of the program is to support economic development on the Tohono O'odham Nation through digital workforce development, community connectivity improvement, and computer literacy enhancement.

Capital Projects Funds for Tribal Governments

The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program works in tandem with other federal programs to streamline application processes and maximize the potential for Tribal Governments to receive broadband funding. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 appropriated $10 billion to the Treasury Department to establish the Capital Projects Fund to provide funding to states, territories, and Tribal Governments to carry out critical capital projects directly enabling work, education, and health monitoring, including remote options, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As broadband internet connectivity can be an essential element of these efforts, the Capital Projects Fund allows for investment in high-quality broadband as well as other connectivity infrastructure, devices, and equipment, among other things. The Capital Projects Fund for Tribal Governments will deliver $100 million in funding to Tribal Governments.

NTIA has coordinated with Treasury to allow Tribal Governments to indicate their interest in receiving funding under the Capital Projects Fund. By providing a statement authorizing NTIA to share with Treasury the complete application packages that they submit for NTIA’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, Tribal Governments can be considered for funding under the Treasury program.

Tribal governments have each been allocated about $167,500 in Capital Projects Fund support. They submitted a request for funding to the Treasury Department by October 14, 2022. Treasury is now reviewing and approving Tribal Government projects and has already made funds available for many eligible investments. Some of the Capital Projects Fund awards include:

Nansemond Indian Nation, Virginia: This project involves the purchase of equipment to extend public Wi-Fi access. Currently, on a 70-acre property, there is only broadband access at the central buildings; this project will allow Tribal members to connect from anywhere on the property.

Tonkawa Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma: The Tonkawa Tribe's project will purchase routers and other equipment to connect 100 homes to the internet.

Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada: The funding will be used to support the development of a multi-use center that will provide public computers and internet access, including private spaces for telehealth visits.

Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley, California: Funds will be used to improve a multipurpose community facility and purchase computers and other equipment to enhance high-speed internet access for the community.

Catawba Indian Nation, South Carolina: This award will assist in the development of the Catawba Nation Community Center, a multi-purpose facility to accommodate critical needs and provide critical services, including remote services.

The full list of Capital Projects Fund awards for Tribal governments can be found here.

FCC Support for Broadband on Tribal Lands

The Federal Communications Commission's Affordable Connectivity Program offers a monthly discount for broadband service provided to low-income people living on Tribal Lands. Qualifying households on Tribal lands can receive a $75 per month discount on their broadband internet subscription as well as a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet from participating providers.

The FCC also has an initiative under its Schools and Libraries (E-Rate) Program which specifically helps Tribal Libraries apply to and receive E-Rate support. The E-Rate Program, part of the Universal Service Fund administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), helps eligible schools and libraries apply for discounts on services such as internet access, telecommunications services, and related equipment.

To help Tribal libraries that are new to the E-Rate program, the Tribal Libraries Pilot Program will provide one-on-one assistance in all aspects of preparing, applying, and receiving E-Rate support during the upcoming funding year. The Tribal Libraries Pilot Program seeks to gain an understanding of the applicant experience to increase participation and streamline the E-Rate program requirements, particularly for Tribal applicants. The goal of this program is to learn what training and support is most useful to new Tribal library applicants to enhance E-Rate training materials and training programs and ways to simplify the program.

The E-Rate Tribal Libraries Pilot Program is open to Tribal libraries that are new to the E-Rate program or had challenges applying to the E-Rate program in the past and were unsuccessful. Tribal libraries must be able to demonstrate that they have three basic characteristics of a library, including:

Regularly scheduled hours;
Staff; and
Materials for library users.

Tribal government entities can designate a library as a Tribal library (for example, through a Tribal Resolution). Tribal libraries may also work with the state library administrative agency where they are located. Tribal college libraries are ineligible for E-Rate support.

The application window for the E-Rate Tribal Libraries Pilot Program has closed. USAC and the FCC will contact libraries that applied for the pilot with next steps by December 1, 2022.

USDA's ReConnect Program and Federal Funding For Tribes

The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) ReConnect Program provides federal loans and grants to facilitate broadband deployment in rural areas. This includes funds for the costs of construction, improvement, or acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service in eligible rural areas. Many Tribes benefit from ReConnect Program funding as they continue their broadband infrastructure buildouts.The ReConnect Program, administered under USDA's Rural Development agency, was established as a pilot program in 2018 and was codified in 2021. To date, USDA has announced a total of $3,123,323,181 invested through the ReConnect Program's first three funding rounds. The fourth round of the ReConnect Program uses funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Applications for the fourth round were due by November 2, 2022. USDA maintains certain guidelines specific to Tribal participation in the ReConnect Program in order to ensure equitable funding on Tribal lands and in Indigenous communities. These include:

A Tribe's self-certification of whether Tribal lands are served or unserved;
A Tribal Government Resolution of Consent, if a non-Tribal applicant is proposing service over or on Tribal lands;
Compliance with Tribal laws;
Support of Tribal self-government;
Flexibility for Tribal Nations; and
Funding for Tribal governments.

Eligible Alaska Native Corporations, Tribal Governments, Colonias, persistent poverty areas, and socially vulnerable communities can receive 100 percent grant funding from the ReConnect Program, rather than grant/loan combinations or loan options. Grants for these entities are $35 million at maximum and $100,000 at minimum, with no matching fund requirement. Up to $350 million is available for these grants in the upcoming fourth round of ReConnect awards. All awardees must ensure their service providers participate in the Affordable Connectivity Program.

The Osage Nation, based in Oklahoma, recently received a ReConnect grant of $13.9 million for the construction of a fiber-to-the-home network capability, offering 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) symmetrical broadband speeds. The grant was awarded on August 30, 2022, just days after the Osage Nation was awarded a $40.6 million Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program grant on August 16. Osage Nation Grants Management Director Christa Unap-Fulkerson said of the grants, “What an exciting addition to the Nation’s broadband initiatives. This means more Osages will have access to high-speed connections to help support health outcomes, educational endeavors, and local economic growth to say the least. This is a profound opportunity to lift our people and take us into the future innovatively and competitively.”

USDA awards funding to Tribal nations for broadband connectivity through a number of its programs, including:

The Community Connect Program helps rural communities extend access where broadband service is least likely to be commercially available, but where it can make a tremendous difference in the quality of life for people and businesses. The projects funded by these grants help rural residents tap into the enormous potential of the Internet for jobs, education, healthcare, public safety, and community development. The Community Connect Program has awarded over $160 million through more than 80 grants to rural areas since 2013.
USDA's Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants help rural communities use advanced telecommunications technology to connect to each other––and the world––to overcome the effects of remoteness and low population density. Grant projects aim to support healthcare needs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, help prepare for future pandemic events, ensure racial equity in funding areas, rebuild the US rural economy, and address the climate crisis.
The Rural Broadband Loans, Loan/Grant Combinations, and Loan Guarantees (Farm Bill Broadband Program) helps to furnish loans and loan guarantees to provide funds for the costs of construction, improvement, or acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide service at the broadband lending speed in eligible rural areas.
USDA's Telecommunications Infrastructure Loans & Loan Guarantees Program provides financing for the construction, maintenance, improvement and expansion of telephone service and broadband in rural areas.

More in this Series

The Infrastructure Law is Still about More than Money

A Year One Update on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Investing in Broadband Deployment

A Year One Update on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Investing in Broadband Adoption

A Year One Update on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Connecting Tribal Communities

A Year One Update on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Making Broadband More Affordable

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Kevin Taglang
Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society
1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214
Wilmette, IL 60091
847-328-3040
headlines AT benton DOT org

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Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities

Series:

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

Hoopa Valley Tribe is Closing the Digital Divide

Grace Tepper — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 11:15:00 +0000

Friday, October 21, 2022

Weekly Digest

Hoopa Valley Tribe is Closing the Digital Divide

Round-Up for the Week of October 17-21, 2022

Tepper

The Hoopa Valley Tribe has worked hard to connect its northwestern Californian community to high-speed internet despite the barriers to access, adoption and application that Tribal members face. Through Tribal initiatives, regional partnerships, and state and federal funding, the Hoopa Valley Tribe is bringing broadband services to this area which has had a lack of investment in connectivity.

Hoopa Valley's Digital Divide

The Hoopa Valley Tribe–home to the Natinixwe or Hupa People–primarily resides on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation around the Trinity River in northwestern California. Over 3,300 people live on the reservation. The valley is 64 miles northeast of Eureka, California, and just south of the Yurok and Karuk Native American Reservations. Surrounded by mountainous, forested terrain, the 92,000-acre Hoopa Valley Reservation is the largest Indian reservation in the state of California.

The region's rural and mountainous geography makes it challenging to build fixed broadband networks to homes on the reservation. Only 53 percent of Hoopa Valley's 1,030 households have a broadband internet subscription compared to the United States average of 85 percent connected households, according to Census data.

Linnea Jackson, General Manager for the Hoopa Valley Public Utilities District, stressed, "There's no wired fiber in this region yet, although there are three regional projects that are happening. Our only option for internet right now is a wireless backhaul.”

The Hoopa Valley Public Utilities District (HVPUD) is a chartered entity of the Hoopa Valley Tribe established 40 years ago. Starting out as the Tribe’s water utility, HVPUD now offers energy services, waste management and broadband services. HVPUD added the latter to bridge the digital divide and provide a remedy to the lack of access on the reservation. When the pandemic hit, Tribal leaders quickly recognized that broadband was a necessity for the Natinixwe community for distance learning, telework and telemedicine. HVPUD has since been making progress on expanding internet access on the reservation.

Jackson, who has been at HVPUD for more than three years, said the Tribe's members have felt the mental draw of the pandemic and being unable to do many things in person. "We have a large Tribal-elder population here," she said. "That's the population that wasn't born utilizing a computer. Now online access is critical to daily functions, such as online billing, accessing services, or even connecting with their grandchildren." But many Tribal elders don’t have the help or the resources they need to connect.

Currently, the lack of robust broadband in Hoopa Valley presents a number of challenges for its residents. Without access to telehealth, some people have to drive long distances to receive specialized care. Jackson said that high-speed internet could also bring access to online higher education, opportunities to preserve traditional practices—such as language classes, basket weaving, and food preservation—increased economic development, and better communication between the Tribal government and off-reservation membership.

Creating Acorn Wireless During COVID-19

In 2020, the Tribal Council allocated $2 million in CARES Act funding to create Acorn Wireless, a tribally-owned and operated wireless internet access service provider. Acorn Wireless was serving its first customers less than a year later, in February of 2021.

“I think it's been absolutely amazing, what we've been able to achieve in that timeframe," said Jackson. "We still have hurdles to overcome but we are working diligently to address connectivity issues."

One benefit of HVPUD's structure as a public utility, Jackson said, is its immense reach in the small Tribal community. This was crucial when it was time for HVPUD to roll out broadband services quickly in 2020.

“Broadband is a perfect fit under the tribal utility as our entity already provides many of the foundational services for our reservation," she said. "The majority of the residents are already a client of HVPUD, so we are building on that customer relationship.”

"Since HVPUD provides foundational utilities providing safe water, disposal services, and broadband, we were not able to shut down and more importantly had to thrive during the pandemic.”

In the height of the pandemic, almost half of the Hoopa Valley Tribe's government departments shut down. In all, 30 non-essential departments closed their doors. Reservation residents with internet access at home relied on digital services to continue functioning, but many weren't able to. Schools were shut down and the student’s ability to access learning platforms was also a struggle.

Acorn Wireless currently offers speed packages for both residential and business needs. For residential customers, its basic service plan offers 10 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 1 Mbps upload speeds for $40 per month, and its Premium service plan provides 25 Mbps download speeds and 5 Mbps upload speeds for $75 monthly.

While Acorn Wireless was up and running quickly after HVPUD received funding, the provider missed the statutory deadline for when services had to be available in order to participate in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Emergency Broadband Benefit Program—now the Affordable Connectivity Program—by just a few weeks. Velocity Wireless, the other internet service provider which serves a small portion of Hoopa Valley, also does not participate in the program.

Under the Affordable Connectivity Program, qualifying low-income consumers can receive a $30 discount on their monthly broadband subscription, and that discount increases to $75 on Tribal lands. For Tribal nations with high populations of low-income households, that can make a huge difference. As of 2020, 2,289 Hoopa Valley residents were below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, the threshold for Affordable Connectivity Program eligibility. HVPUD was recently granted authority to be an ACP provider and will be able to offer $75 per month for customers, which will be a great benefit to the community.

There is an overwhelming amount of work to be done to ensure sustainable broadband access, adoption and application for members of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and HVPUD is diligently working. The utility is juggling so many needs at once, Jackson said, and more funding and more employees are required to do this as well as to keep developing Acorn Wireless and continue HVPUD's other broadband infrastructure plans for Hoopa Valley.

"We live in a rural area that lacks economic development opportunities," said Jackson. "The goal is to make the broadband endeavor sustainable and affordable for our residents."

The Hoopa Valley example illustrates how infrastructure and affordability funding programs can be leveraged to ensure sustainable digital divide solutions.

Tribal and State Investments in Broadband Infrastructure

In addition to launching Acorn Wireless, HVPUD is working with a variety of partners to find solutions for Hoopa Valley's digital divide. In 2021, Hunter Communications, in partnership with the Tribe, was funded for the Hoopa Valley Broadband Initiative (HVBI), which is a hybrid fiber-optic and wireless last-mile infrastructure project that includes backhaul via licensed microwave and a fiber-optic, middle-mile component critical to the last-mile distribution.

The HVBI was awarded $8,638,778 from the California Advanced Service Fund (CASF) towards this initiative in January 2021. The Hoopa Valley Tribe leveraged that grant funding with an investment from the Hoopa Valley Tribal Council. Construction for the project is anticipated to be completed by early 2023.

HVBI will connect Hoopa Valley to two other regional broadband projects on either side of the reservation—the Digital 299 Project and the Klamath River Rural Broadband Initiative (KRRBI)—to further broaden the scope of high-speed connectivity throughout the region.

Once complete Hoopa will have increased connectivity and route diversity. This makes the internet provider's services more resilient, which is especially important given that Hoopa Valley is in a high fire-threat district.

Soon after the January 2021 CASF grant award, Hoopa Valley was awarded another grant of almost $150,000 through CASF's Tribal Technical Assistance Program. This program was created to assist tribes in California with developing market studies, feasibility studies, and business plans which support improved communications networks.

Planning a broadband infrastructure project of this size is a challenge in itself, Jackson said, outside of the need to secure funding.

"No one realizes what it takes to secure frequency licenses, tower leases, ensure alignment and a robust signal, and make sure that your network configurations are correct," she added. However, HVPUD has spent years preparing for and tackling these issues with the assistance of its staff and trusted consultants.

The combination of Tribal, state and federal investments is helping bring these regional builds to fruition, which Jackson said will finally be able to provide sufficient connectivity in Hoopa Valley.

Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program and Digital Navigator Awards

In August 2022, the Hoopa Valley Tribe was awarded over $65 million in funding for broadband infrastructure through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program.

Hoopa Valley's Broadband Infrastructure Deployment project will further efforts to install fiber and wireless networks to directly connect over 1,000 unserved households, 64 businesses, and 19 community anchor institutions with fiber-to-the-home broadband. The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program mandates that projects provide of at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds. The project will also help construct a Tribal data center, install a tower, and provide workforce development training.

According to Jackson, HVPUD is ready to go.

“We're ready to rock and roll," she said. "We want to get our tower built and we want to order [equipment] because the lead times on certain network equipment is almost a year. HVPUD is preparing to procure the engineering and environmental contracts as soon as possible.”

Supply chain delays have the potential to stall projects, said Jackson, as all federal broadband infrastructure program grantees are rushing to stock up on supplies. HVPUD is keeping this and workforce development in mind as it begins to implement its broadband infrastructure plans. The utility wants to balance the need to hire and train Tribal members with the scope of its project.

"We're looking to see how we [can] keep the money local, but also meet the technical requirements of it," Jackson said. "We want to make sure that we're utilizing the dollars that have been invested here to the best of our ability, making sure that we're able to sustain the infrastructure. The goal is for us to build the fiber and get our people trained up."

Sustainable workforce development is a large part of making this massive broadband infrastructure effort work in the long term. All told, HVPUD expects to almost double its staff using funds from the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program while the infrastructure build is in progress, going from the current staff of 16 up to at least 25.

Hoopa Valley also recently received one of eighteen Digital Navigator Corps Grants from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). The program provides funds for hiring community-based digital navigators alongside programmatic and technical support to help thousands of residents in selected areas to gain much-needed access to the internet, devices, and digital skills training. The grants for Digital Navigators last for a period of two and a half years, and range between $320,540 and $389,840 each.

"We're going to utilize the Digital Navigator to make sure that we are assisting our community to apply for the [Affordable Connectivity Program]," said Jackson. "Almost everybody's going to qualify, so that Digital Navigator will help people sign up for that program which will be a great benefit to our entire community."

The influx of funding awards given to the Hoopa Valley Tribe in the last few years displays the depth of the community’s need for broadband infrastructure and digital navigators to aid with adoption. With all its recent efforts, HVPUD is working to bring the connectivity necessary for telemedicine, educational opportunities, and economic development.

Jackson is looking forward to seeing the results of the Tribe's work. "When I take a step back and look at what the impact will be, I think that's what keeps you going," she said. "Because it will upgrade everything from education to how we take care of all our elders. I am proud of being a small part of this legacy project."

Quick Bits

President Biden’s internet promises in limbo amid long battle over FCC nominee (Washington Post)
NTIA CostQuest Data Support (Department of Commerce)
Comcast wanted $210,000 for Internet—so this man helped expand a co-op fiber ISP (Ars Technica)
Maryland Digital Equity Index (Community Development Network of Maryland)

Weekend Reads (resist tl;dr)

Dollars to Megabits, You May Be Paying 400 Times As Much As Your Neighbor for Internet Service (The Markup)
Sounding the Alarm: Disparities in Advertised Pricing for Fast, Reliable Broadband (California Community Foundation)
Workforce Planning Guide: Guidance for BEAD Program Eligible Entities (NTIA)
The Impact of Tech Companies' Network Investment on the Economics of Broadband ISPs (Incompas)

ICYMI from Benton

FCC's ACP Pilot Programs Coming Soon (Kevin Taglang)
Don't Discount the Investments in Internet Infrastructure that Content and Application Providers are Making (David Abecassis)
Michigan All-In on Closing the Digital Divide with American Rescue Plan Support (Kevin Taglang)
Massachusetts to Launch Broadband Infrastructure Gap Networks Grant Program with Capital Projects Fund Award (Kevin Taglang)

Upcoming Events

Oct 24—Indigenous Connectivity Summit 2022 (Connect Humanity and Internet Society)

Oct 24––Good Jobs: Making the Most of Infrastructure Investments (New America)

Oct 25––Internet For All: Connecting Wisconsin Kickoff (Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and NTIA)

Oct 25––Satellite Mega-Constellations: Why Smart Sharing Rules Matter in Space (New America)

Oct 27—Open Federal Communications Commission Meeting (FCC)

Nov 1––Disability Advisory Committee Meeting (FCC)

Nov 16––California and the FCC Unite to Eliminate Digital Discrimination (Michelson 20MM Foundation)

Nov 17––Open Federal Communications Commission Meeting (FCC)

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Kevin Taglang
Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society
1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214
Wilmette, IL 60091
847-328-3040
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Strategy 5: Leverage and create new partnerships

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Strategy 7: Sustain and grow the Territory’s investment in digital equity

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Goal #3: Improve the online accessibility and inclusivity of public resources and services.

Goal #4: Improve the digital skills (literacy) of Virgin Islanders.

Goal #5: Improve the awareness and use of measures to secure the online privacy of, and cybersecurity with respect to, the individual.

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