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Digital Skills Foster Confidence in Life

benton — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 15:10:27 +0000

Monday, April 8, 2024

Digital Beat

Digital Skills Foster Confidence in Life

Dr. Prasad

In a field focused on maps and megabytes, speed and latency, those of us working to realize universal, equitable broadband can sometimes lose sight of what connectivity can mean for people’s day-to-day lives.

Today, we are launching some phenomenal research by EveryoneOn CEO Norma E. Fernandez that not only expertly applies the tools of in-depth, careful, and closely observed, qualitative research, but does so to focus on often overlooked groups—low-income African American/Black and Latina women. Her new report, From Fear To Confidence: The Digital Skills Journey of Underserved Women, focuses on women’s lived experiences and offers valuable insights into how digital inclusion programs can be designed to fit into complicated lives and meet diverse needs.

Fernandez set out to understand what motivated women to embark on their digital skills journeys, and when they did, what circumstances they encountered that either created a speed bump or smoothed their path. Through interviews and surveys, Fernandez's research discovered common threads, ones that transcend race, ethnicity, and geography.

Learning, Helping Others, and Independence Are Motivators to Build Digital Literacy and Skills

The women who participated in Fernandez’s research understood the imperative to be connected and have skills to survive in the digital landscape. They wanted to feel comfortable in this world and not have to rely on family or friends to conduct online activities.

Family, Friends, and Community Support Broadband Adoption and Learning

The women needed the support of their families to be able to attend and complete their digital skills training, both for logistical and emotional support. Community partners were also essential in ensuring women’s access to digital skills training.

Juggling Fear, Domestic/Household Responsibilities, and Unaffordable Internet Prices Are Realities

Women had serious practical constraints on their time and ability to develop their digital skills. They needed to navigate domestic responsibilities—such as preparing meals, doing laundry, and caring for parents—in order to even attend the training sessions.

As the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program looms, we must reckon with ongoing needs. The majority of women who participated in Fernandez’s research said paying internet bills was a challenge. How do they continue to hone their skills, find new jobs that use these skills, or take advantage of online conveniences, if they cannot afford ongoing internet service in their homes?

Perhaps my favorite aspect of Fernandez’s work was how her findings stressed both practical and emotional aspects. Yes, women wanted skills so they could get a different job or manage some tasks easier. But they also wanted to not feel embarrassed because they needed help from their kids to do something online. Fear, Fernandez discovered, is a huge obstacle to beginning a journey to acquire digital skills. How do any of us feel when we think we could break something valuable if we don't know what we're doing?

Fernandez also wanted to understand what it means for these women to become more connected and more digitally skilled.

Digital Skills Foster Confidence in Life

The women who attended the digital skills training programs learned to do a range of daily tasks—from using email to communicate with their children’s teachers to creating flyers for their volunteer activities. Their successful acquisition of these skills translated into a newfound confidence that extended beyond their digital endeavors.

Fernandez’s strongest finding was that every interviewee, without exception, expressed heightened empowerment and overall confidence. Several women expressed sentiments such as “I feel like I can do anything now!” This is the kind of data that cannot be “captured” by surveys alone.

The conversations Fernandez had in Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area revealed how digital inclusion practitioners may conceptualize things differently than these women do. For instance, when Fernandez asked about “challenges” in their digital skills journey, the word did not resonate. Sure, they needed to find childcare or transportation before they could come to the class, but those were simply the facts of their life, not challenges.

Fernandez was able to glean these insights because of how she did her research, interacting in English and Spanish, ensuring these women understood what the research was for and how their words would be used. Fernandez built a crucial level of trust. That participants gained something from the interaction was also important. Fernandez recognized the value of people sharing their time and perspectives and offered them a gift certificate for participating.

These crucial insights into the lived experiences of low-income Black and Latina women are exactly why the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society set up the Marjorie & Charles Benton Opportunity Fund. We want to support research projects, often practitioner-led, that will help us understand realities on the ground, design better programs, and demonstrate what makes a real difference in people’s lives. A new round of fellowships will open this summer.

Fernandez will present this research tomorrow in a webinar hosted by the Benton Institute. She will be joined in conversation by Aneta Thomas Lee of the Illinois Broadband Lab and Maria Chaparro, Founder of Mamacitas Cibernetricas. Their discussion will draw from their experiences working with marginalized communities across the country -- from the borderlands to the rural Black South, from the Midwest to major urban centers. The panelists will discuss how women gain not just confidence through these digital skills journeys, but also how they are crucial to digital equity organizing within their communities.

The webinar will be held Tuesday, April 9th at 1 PM ET and you can register for the webinar at this link.

Dr. Revati Prasad is the Vice President of Programs at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all people in the U.S. have access to competitive, High-Performance Broadband regardless of where they live or who they are. We believe communication policy - rooted in the values of access, equity, and diversity - has the power to deliver new opportunities and strengthen communities.

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

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Innovators in Digital Inclusion

NTIA Making Resources Available to Help States Turn Digital Equity Plans into Reality

benton — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 19:00:49 +0000

Friday, March 29, 2024

Digital Beat

NTIA Making Resources Available to Help States Turn Digital Equity Plans into Reality

On March 29, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) published a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program. Through this program, NTIA is making funding available for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Indian Tribes, Alaska Native entities, and Native Hawaiian organizations¹ to turn their digital equity plans into digital inclusion activities.

What State Digital Equity Capacity Grants Are For

State Digital Equity Capacity Grants can only be used for five purposes:

To update or maintain a state's digital equity plan (although no more than 20 percent of the grant can be used for this purpose),
To implement a state's digital equity plan,
To make subgrants to implement a state's digital equity plan,²
To evaluate subgrantees' efforts (although no more than 5 percent of the grant can be used for this purpose), and
Administrative costs (although no more than 3 percent of the grant can be used for this purpose).

NTIA encourages states to focus on the following:

Covered populations (defined by law as people living in low-income households; people age 60 or above; incarcerated individuals; veterans; people with disabilities; people with a language barrier; members of racial or ethnic minority groups; and people who live in rural areas),
Long-lasting and meaningful change,
Measurable implementation strategies, and
Stakeholder engagement. Stakeholders who are directly affected by the proposed strategies and interventions should be involved to encourage ongoing feedback regarding the effectiveness of the interventions and to seek input on potential solutions and improvements.

Although this is not an exhaustive list, NTIA suggests state activities include digital literacy and skills training; e-government and civic engagement; device distribution programs; economic development (digital entrepreneurship, online job training, and remote work opportunities, fostering economic empowerment and reducing disparities); online access to health and mental wellness services; online accessibility; and access to affordable broadband service.

State Digital Equity Capacity Grants cannot be used to supplant other federal or state funds that have been made available to carry out the activities above. Nor can funds be used for broadband deployment.

Funding

Congress appropriated $840 million for grants under the State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program through fiscal year 2024³ ($240 million for fiscal year 2022, $300 million for fiscal year 2023, and $300 million for fiscal year 2024). Future NOFOs are expected to make up to an additional $300,000,000 available for implementation of Digital Equity Plans and digital inclusion activities in each of fiscal years 2025 and 2026.

The Capacity Grant Program does not require cost sharing or matching, and NTIA will not give additional consideration during the evaluation process for applications proposing a non-federal cost-sharing contribution.

About $760 million is available to 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico

Each state’s funding allocation, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, was calculated based on a formula defined in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The formula takes into account the relative population of the state (50%), the relative size of the covered populations residing in the state (25%), and the comparative lack of availability and adoption of broadband (25%).

About $45 million is available to native entities

The Capacity Grant program will make $45 million available on a competitive basis to Native Entities to promote digital inclusion and broadband adoption efforts for their communities. This includes over $3 million for digital equity planning activities and $42 million for related projects. The Digital Equity Act requires that no less than 5 percent of award funds be available to Tribal governments and Native entities.

About $8.4 million is available to territories

The Digital Equity Act includes a set aside of no less than 1 percent of available award funds for the remaining territories: American Samoa, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and U.S. Virgin Islands. This NOFO includes a set aside of $8.4 million, split equally among those four territories.

State/Territory	Digital Equity Tentative Allocation Amount
Alabama	$13,702,566.00
Alaska	$5,631,769.64
Arizona	$16,170,760.44
Arkansas	$10,161,429.01
California	$70,226,453.82
Colorado	$12,368,261.03
Connecticut	$9,183,114.07
Delaware	$4,816,482.10
District of Columbia	$3,804,000.00
Florida	$41,748,794.74
Georgia	$22,455,639.68
Hawaii	$6,017,160.03
Idaho	$6,305,226.45
Illinois	$23,732,912.78
Indiana	$15,096,770.19
Iowa	$8,442,129.37
Kansas	$8,229,246.17
Kentucky	$12,123,531.39
Louisiana	$12,727,887.98
Maine	$5,784,349.60
Maryland	$13,427,134.17
Massachusetts	$14,133,924.00
Michigan	$20,585,775.60
Minnesota	$12,033,288.01
Mississippi	$10,752,090.73
Missouri	$14,237,940.09
Montana	$6,938,534.64
Nebraska	$6,500,627.76
Nevada	$9,200,546.13
New Hampshire	$4,942,018.62
New Jersey	$18,094,857.62
New Mexico	$8,673,975.84
New York	$36,984,641.81
North Carolina	$22,456,097.01
North Dakota	$4,549,772.25
Ohio	$23,291,991.74
Oklahoma	$11,233,311.64
Oregon	$9,947,586.17
Pennsylvania	$25,508,473.61
Rhode Island	$4,540,059.53
South Carolina	$12,846,583.30
South Dakota	$5,010,234.08
Tennessee	$15,814,288.00
Texas	$55,641,147.86
Utah	$7,795,149.91
Vermont	$5,299,150.18
Virginia	$18,330,732.47
Washington	$15,983,291.58
West Virginia	$9,011,588.00
Wisconsin	$13,248,029.83
Wyoming	$5,251,485.99
American Samoa	$2,100,000.00
Guam	$2,100,000.00
Northern Mariana Islands	$2,100,000.00
Puerto Rico	$9,807,187.39
U.S. Virgin Islands	$2,100,000.00

Evaluation

Grantees and subgrantees are required to incorporate program measurement and evaluation activities as a part of their program design and implementation—including progress made toward meeting the measurable objectives identified in a state's digital equity plan., Information collected must include the following data points:

Number of Covered Population(s) served,
Number of people served within each Covered Population,
Total number of people served,
Number of programs implemented by type,
Anecdotal/personal testimony demonstrating the positive impact of the Program,
Quantifiable evidence of progress toward the measurable objectives identified in the Digital Equity Plan, and
Impact on the State or Territory’s goals regarding economic and workforce development outcomes; educational outcomes; health outcomes; civic and social engagement; and delivery of essential services.

Timeline

States (including the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico) have until May 28, 2024 to complete and submit applications for State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program awards. U.S. Territories have until July 31. The application window for Indian Tribes, Alaska Native entities, and Native Hawaiian organizations will open September 25, 2024, and close on February 7, 2025.

NTIA expects to begin issuing awards to states no later than August 28, 2024 and to make awards on a rolling basis.

Awardees will five years from the date of their grants to spend the federal funding.

Get More Info

This article is not intended to be a full summary of the NTIA's NOFO; please read the notice for additional details.

NTIA employs a great number of marvelously helpful and informative people. For additional information about this funding opportunity, we suggest starting with the following:

For programmatic inquiries: Director of Digital Equity Angela Thi Bennett digitalequity@ntia.gov

For grant management inquiries: NIST Grants Officer Darren Olson darren.olson@nist.gov

For media inquiries (media are people, too): Director of Public Affairs Charles Meisch press@ntia.doc.gov

Notes

We generally use "states" in this article to mean all these "eligible entities."
Each state must establish a fair, transparent, equitable, and inclusive process for selecting and conducting risk assessments of subgrantees. The applicant’s selection processes must be made clear to potential subgrantees before subawards are made. NTIA strongly encourages states to take deliberate steps to ensure that subgrant opportunities are accessible to a diverse range of organizations, particularly those owned, led and/or managed by members of the Covered Populations.
Fiscal year 2024 began on October 1, 2023, and ends September 30, 2024.

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

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Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

Broadband Provisions in the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024

benton — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 22:15:28 +0000

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Digital Beat

Broadband Provisions in the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024

On Saturday, March 23, 2024, President Joe Biden signed into law the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 2882), legislation that provides funding through September 30, 2024, for projects and activities of departments and agencies of the Federal Government. H.R. 2882 completes the appropriations process for fiscal year 2024 (FY2024). Earlier in March, President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 4366). As we reported earlier, H.R. 4366 provided some direct spending on broadband. The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 is much lighter on broadband; this quick synopsis is a companion to our earlier reporting.

Of note, Congress is explicit in this law that none of the funds provided in this law shall be available through a reprogramming of funds that:

creates a new program;
eliminates a program, project, or activity;
increases funds or personnel for any program, project, or activity for which funds have been denied or restricted by the Congress;
proposes to use funds directed for a specific activity by the Committee on Appropriations of either the House of Representatives or the Senate for a different purpose;
augments existing programs, projects, or activities in excess of $5,000,000 or 10 percent, whichever is less;
reduces existing programs, projects, or activities by $5,000,000 or 10 percent, whichever is less; or
creates or reorganizes offices, programs, or activities unless prior approval is received from the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

In fact, prior to any significant reorganization, restructuring, relocation, or closing of offices, programs, or activities, each agency funded in this law must consult with the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate. By the end of May 2024, each agency must send those committees a report to establish the baseline for application of reprogramming and transfer authorities for the current fiscal year.

FCC Budget

Congress appropriates $390,192,000 for Federal Communications Commission operations in FY2024, a figure that will be reduced by how much the agency collects in regulatory fees. Not less than $12,131,000 of these funds will be for the FCC's Office of Inspector General. In March 2022, the FCC requested $390,192,000 in budget authority from regulatory fee offsetting collections. The request represented an increase of $16,192,000 or 4.3 percent from the FY 2022 level of $374,000,000.

H.R. 2882 rescinds $1.768 billion from the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF). In the American Rescue Plan Act, Congress established the ECF to help schools and libraries provide the tools and services their communities need for remote learning during the COVID-19 emergency period. With $7.171 billion, ECF has covered reasonable costs of laptop and tablet computers; Wi-Fi hotspots; modems; routers; and broadband connectivity purchases for off-campus use by students, school staff, and library patrons.

On March 20, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel proposed new 5G Fund rules.

None of these funds can be used by the FCC to modify, amend, or change its rules or regulations for universal service high-cost support for competitive eligible telecommunications carriers concerning the 5G Mobility Fund.

None of the funds made available may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading, and exchanging of pornography.

Congress includes an amendment to the Universal Service Antideficiency Temporary Suspension Act, extending it to December 31, 2024. The Antideficiency Act does not allow a federal agency or program—like the FCC's Universal Service Fund (USF) program—to make obligations in excess of available budgetary resources. In 2004, Congress passed a bill granting the Universal Service Fund a one-year exemption from the Antideficiency Act—and has extended the exemption as needed since. Absent this statutory exemption, the USF's funding commitment decision letters constitute obligations and the FCC would have to collect USF fees equaling those obligations before sending the letters.

FTC Budget

Congress appropriates $425,700,000 for Federal Trade Commission operations in FY2024, a figure that will be reduced by how much the agency collects in premerger notification filings.

Funding from this law may not be used by the FTC to complete the draft report entitled ‘‘Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children: Preliminary Proposed Nutrition Principles to Guide Industry Self-Regulatory Efforts’’ unless the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children complies with Executive Order No. 13563 which aims to improve regulation and regulatory review.

Digitizing Government Services

H.R. 2882 rescinds $10 million in unobligated funds from the United States Digital Service. In the American Rescue Plan Act, Congress appropriated $200 million for the U.S. Digital Service which collaborates with public servants throughout the government to address some of the most critical needs and ultimately deliver a better government experience to people. The U.S. Digital Service works across multiple agencies and brings best practices from our various disciplines—including engineering, product, design, procurement, data science, operations, talent, and communications.

The American Rescue Plan Act set aside $1 billion for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) housed at the General Services Administration. H.R. 2882 rescinds $100 million in unobligated funds. The TMF invests in the most promising cybersecurity, data protection, interoperability, legacy system upgrades, and digital experience projects. TMF helps implement information technology (IT) solutions across the government that improve agency processes and systems, use taxpayer dollars more efficiently, and deliver simple, seamless, and secure experiences to the American public.

H.R. 2882 appropriates $29 million for the Federal Citizen Services Fund which combines public-facing services and agency-facing programs that, together, drive governmentwide digital transformation. The programs funded by the FCSF offer shared digital services across the Federal enterprise, promote the adoption of the processes and systems that foster innovation, and support Federal agencies in increasing their own capacity to drive digital transformation on behalf of the public. The Administrator of General Services, with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, will supply Congress with a detailed spending plan for these funds in June 2024. The plan will include:

the amounts currently in the funds and the estimate of amounts to be transferred or reimbursed in fiscal year 2024;
a detailed breakdown of the purposes for all funds estimated to be transferred or reimbursed pursuant to this section (including the total number of personnel and costs for all staff whose salaries are provided for by this section); and
where applicable, a description of the funds intended for use by or for the implementation of specific laws passed by Congress.

Cybersecurity

As part of appropriations for U.S. Department of Homeland Security, H.R. 2882 provides $2.873 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is the operational lead for federal cybersecurity and the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience. The appropriation is $34.1 million below the FY23 enacted level and $183.3 million below the President’s Budget Request. Congress set aside:

$823.1 million for the operation and modernization of cyber defense technology and tools.
$819.3 million for cyber operations, including vulnerability management and threat hunting.
$130.2 million for operations, testing, and improvements to emergency communications.

Kids and Media

The funding package also includes $15 million for implementation of the Children and Media Research Advancement (CAMRA) Act which authorized the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to lead a research program on technology and media’s effects on infants, children, and adolescents in core areas of cognitive, physical, and socio-emotional development. NIH will examine the impact of exposure to and use of media and technologies such as mobile devices, computers, social media, online applications, websites, television, motion pictures, artificial intelligence, video games, and virtual and augmented reality.

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

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Updated ACP Enrollment Performance Tool Includes ACP Risk Score

benton — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 11:00:27 +0000

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Digital Beat

Updated ACP Enrollment Performance Tool Includes ACP Risk Score

Horrigan

Today we are releasing our latest version of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) Enrollment Performance Tool, which updates data through February 2024. We introduce a new feature in this version—the ACP Risk Score for each zip code included in the tool. This score indicates the degree to which households in a given zip code are at risk of losing or reducing internet connectivity should the ACP benefit lapse. A high score (on a scale of 0 to 100) is a sign that households in that zip code may be more likely to lose internet connectivity than households in areas with a lower score. If a zip code area has a risk score above 70, it stands a good chance of having its households face significant disruption from ACP's demise. Losing connectivity could mean giving up home internet service completely or choosing between having a wireline or wireless subscription plan.

As states and localities plan for Digital Equity Act funds and continue to focus on Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) investments, the disruption in home broadband subscription brought about by ACP’s end will be important to understand. The ACP Risk Score aims to provide a means to examine which areas are likely to be hardest hit.

In addition to the ACP Risk Score, the latest version of the ACP Enrollment Performance Tool has the same features as in prior iterations. The newly updated tool covers some 23.27 million enrolled ACP households, the total number of households signed up for ACP when enrollment stopped on February 7, 2024. The ACP Tool still places zip code areas into performance categories based on comparisons of actual ACP enrollment to predicted enrollment. The predictions come from a statistical model that uses American Community Survey data (updated in this latest release to 5-year 2018-2022 estimates) and other data to bring socio-economic data to bear on understanding ACP enrollment patterns.

The ACP Risk Score is built from several socio-economic variables in the tool’s statistical model that capture community-wide challenges eligible ACP households may face. The ACP Risk Score captures in zip code areas the share of households:

experiencing “rent burden,” (i.e., households paying more than 30% of their income for rent)
with foreign-born individuals
with unemployed individuals
whose annual incomes are $15,000 or less
that have moved in the past year.

These metrics, collectively, are strong predictors of ACP enrollment. For instance, the ACP statistical model shows a positive link between areas with high “rent burden” and ACP enrollment. This makes sense, in that low-income households with high housing costs are likely to embrace a subsidy that offers some relief from the cost of a household necessity such as broadband service. Once that subsidy goes away, many of these households may face a choice of whether to keep service—a choice made more difficult if a rent-burdened household has other risk factors (e.g., unemployment). The ACP Risk Score combines the risk factors noted above into a single number for users.

Think of these metrics in the ACP Risk Score as measures of the social and economic headwinds households faced as they made the choice to subscribe to ACP. These headwinds will persist if ACP goes away—and communities with the greatest challenges may suffer most in terms of the percentage of people who lose home internet connectivity.

John B. Horrigan is a Benton Senior Fellow and a national expert on technology adoption, digital inclusion, and evaluating the outcomes and impacts of programs designed to promote communications technology adoption and use.

See These ACP Resources

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

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Emergency Broadband Benefit/Emergency Connectivity Fund

Broadband Provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024

benton — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 18:00:44 +0000

Friday, March 15, 2024

Digital Beat

Broadband Provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024

On March 9, 2024, President Joe Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 4366) legislation that funds, through September 30, departments and agencies of the Federal Government covered by six appropriations bills. Here we look at broadband-related funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

USDA Broadband Programs

Through H.R. 4366's Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, Congress provides the USDA a total discretionary allocation of $26.228 billion, which is $2.67 billion (9%) below the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Budget Request. The legislation prioritizes USDA agencies and programs that protect the U.S. food and drug supply; supports America’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities; and ensures low-income Americans have access to nutrition programs. The law also appropriates additional federal spending to support three USDA broadband programs: 1) the ReConnect Loan and Grant Program, 2) the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants Program, and 3) the Community Connect Program.

ReConnect

For FY24, Congress sets aside $100,385,000 for the ReConnect Loan and Grant Program which furnishes loans and grants to provide funds for the costs of construction, improvement, or acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service in eligible rural areas. In 2022, Congress appropriated over $363 million for ReConnect. As in the last funding round, Congress has earmarked some projects for funding, this year totaling $10.385 million.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA-3) helped secure $4,224,000 for the Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Co-Op to construct middle- and last-mile fiber optic networks to rural residents in the A-15 and Valley Ranch areas. This project will be providing reliable, high-speed broadband services to rural residents, enabling access to online education, telemedicine, remote work, and supporting local economic development, while also enhancing emergency personnel communications capabilities.
For Le Sueur County (MN), Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN-2) and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Trina Smith (D-MN) helped win a $1 million award for the construction cost-share of broadband projects with internet service providers. The project will help support this disconnected, rural community by laying the groundwork for county-wide broadband connection, spurring economic development.
With the help of Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), a $150,000 Reconnect award will go to Anaconda-Deer Lodge County, a consolidated county-city government that currently has no access to broadband infrastructure. The funding will go towards the installation of dedicated fiber infrastructure connecting nine county government sites.
At the request of Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC-11), USDA will award $1 million for broadband expansion in Haywood County, NC.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-1) and Sens Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) helped secure $1 million for Three Rivers Fiber Broadband in Tillamook County. The funding will help build 7.24 miles of middle-mile fiber optic broadband infrastructure to expand access to 332 homes, supporting connectivity, cell towers, and public safety communications efforts for what is a cellular dead zone.
Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-OR-6) requested $1 million to expand broadband internet in Sherwood. OR to improve economic development, health care, and education access in the area. The City of Sherwood has been working with Salinas’ office to help secure funding to help construct roughly 40 miles of fiber cable that would pass through 10 rural communities including portions of Sherwood. For almost two decades, the city has operated a municipal internet service provider Sherwood Broadband.
Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA-9) requested $1 million for PA's Central Bradford County Economic Development Authority.
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA-02) requested $286,000 for the Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband Authority (ESVBA) Broadband Expansion Project. ESVBA will build approximately 10.1 miles of fiber across several challenging areas to serve the residents of Custis Neck, Folly Creek Club, Henrys Point and Locustville. This funding will provide these rural communities with much-needed wireless and connectivity services and upgrades.
Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA-4) requested $725,000 for the Henrico County Universal Broadband Deployment Project to extend fiber-to-the-home infrastructure to 412 serviceable units.

ReConnect awards must focus on areas where at least 90 percent of the households lack access to networks that can offer internet access with speeds of at least 25 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 3 Mbps upstream. The networks built with ReConnect awards must be capable of providing service at speeds of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream. Awards cannot be used in areas of previous USDA broadband loans unless the previous grantee is not providing 25/3 service.

Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants

USDA's Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants Program helps rural residents tap into the enormous potential of the internet to improve education and health care, two of the most crucial keys to successful rural economic and community development. In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023—signed by President Biden in December 2022—Congress set aside nearly $65 million for telemedicine and distance learning services in rural areas. For the remaining months of the fiscal year, Congress has appropriated roughly $49.6 million of which about $9.6 million is earmarked by specific Members of Congress.

The University of Arkansas Medical Sciences (UAMS) Digital Interventions for Care and Education telemedicine mental health program will receive $1 million with the help of Sen. John Boozman (R-AR).
The Loma Linda University Medical Center will receive $434,000 for the Expanding Healthcare Access to the High Desert and Rural Communities of San Bernardino County project. According to Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA-23), the funds will be used for the placement of three telehealth sites throughout the region.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO-06)—with Sens Michael (D-CO) Bennet and John Hickenlooper (D-CO)—helped secure nearly $403,000 for the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center’s Rural eConsult Expansion. The funds will expand the eConsult program to additional Federally Qualified Health Centers in rural Colorado, giving health providers the ability to conduct online consultations with specialists and helping patients receive timely, effective treatment.
The GROW Institute Rural Upskilling Through Distance Learning project will receive $300,000 due to Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO-7). The Colorado State University System will use the funding to provide rural upskilling efforts in Custer and Fremont Counties and that will help support job growth and economic development.
Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA-01) teamed with Sens Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) to secure $213,000 for the Greater Valdosta United Way's 2-1-1 Service, the area's most comprehensive source of information about local resources and services.
Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) helped secure $750,000 for OSF HealthCare, a not-for-profit Catholic healthcare organization, to expand a rural telemedicine program to underserved rural areas in Champaign, Vermillion, and Douglas Counties.
Central Michigan University will be awarded $500,000 to expand health care job training in Bay, Isabella, Midland and Saginaw counties, with a focus on training students in rural communities thanks to Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI-08).
With help from Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), the Mississippi Rural Health Association will receive $731,000 to carry out distance learning and telemedicine activities to improve the rural healthcare workforce.
Rep Tom Kean, Jr. (R-NJ-07) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) secured $127,000 for Abilities Incredible People Training Project by Abilities of Northwest Jersey. The funding will increase training and employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities through classroom and distance learning. The project will provide distance learning focusing on soft skills and provide professional growth and pre-employment services. Moreover, it provides funds for training and support to instructors to enhance students’ success in coding, technology, and website development and testing.
Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) helped win $113,000 for the Grant County CyberMill Expansion project in John Day to support more equitable internet access for rural Oregonians. The federal funding will be used for distance learning, telemedicine, and broadband equipment and technology.
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA-14) requested $680,000 for the Waynesburg Workforce Development Program.
South Carolina State University's Rural Telehealth Initiative will receive $1 million in support due to Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC-6).
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN-4) requested $1 million for distance learning equipment for Motlow State Community College.
Although Rep. Keith Self (R-TX-3) voted against the Consolidated Appropriations Act, he secured $1.75 million for Texas A&M University-Commerce's mental health initiatives through the legislation.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX-10) requested nearly $403,000 for distance learning equipment for Austin Community College District's Elgin Campus.
Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX-11) requested $170,000 for Texas A&M Health Science Center's Telehealth readiness Project.

Congress directs USDA to allocate at least ten percent of Distance Learning and Telemedicine funding to persistent poverty counties.¹

Community Connect Grant Program

USDA's Community Connect program provides financial assistance to eligible applicants that will provide broadband service in rural, economically-challenged communities where service does not exist. H.R. 4366 allocates $20 million for Community Connect in FY24—down from $35 million in FY23.

NTIA's Budget

In March 2023, NTIA requested $117.3 million for FY24. Instead, Congress appropriates $57 million to NTIA through September 30, 2025. The funding comes with the following strings:

NTIA will charge other Federal agencies for costs incurred in spectrum management, analysis, operations, and related services.
All funds collected from other Federal agencies for telecommunications research will be used to support NTIA's Institute for Telecommunication Sciences.

Congress also appropriates $2 million for maintenance and repair of NTIA facilities.

This legislation also sets aside $337.4 million in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) for NTIA salaries, expenses, administration, and oversight for (IIJA) broadband programs as well as the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot and the Broadband Infrastructure Program.

A Final Word About Veterans

The new law also directs the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to continue to expand telehealth availability, including the facilitation of public-private partnerships, to include additional mental health, primary care, and rehabilitation services as a means to deliver care in rural and underserved communities.

Congress encourages the VA to leverage newly gained telehealth capacity to address backlogs for disability exams and healthcare appointments when appropriate. And Congress further directs the VA to continue to implement plans to improve veteran and provider satisfaction, increase awareness of its telehealth program, and enhance adoption of telehealth by veterans and providers.

To meet the growing demand for telehealth or virtual mental healthcare, Congress encourages the VA to provide veterans access to virtual cognitive behavioral therapy—and to provide a report, not later than June 4, on the status of efforts to utilize solutions and partners in the delivery of mental health services virtually and how to make these solutions more accessible to patients.

Congress commends the efforts of private organizations to support veterans and recognizes that they can sometimes provide services, such as counseling and wellness programs, for the families of veterans that the VA cannot. Recognizing that Congress, the VA, and private organizations share the same goal of supporting veterans, Congress directs the VA to build upon its existing partnerships and seek opportunities to establish new ones and provides up to $5 million for this purpose. Congress is specifically interested in partnerships focused on providing mental health care, including the mental health of veterans’ families, and requests a report on the VA's current partnership activities also by June 4. The report will identify types of partnerships and their best practices and the opportunities, barriers, and cost of expanding them. The report will also include an analysis of potential and innovative options to simplify the process for veterans seeking mental health care, such as through modifications to referral requirements, technologies to ease scheduling, and the use of telemedicine.

Notes:

(1) Any county that has had 20 percent or more of its population living in poverty over the past 30 years.

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

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Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities

The Affordable Connectivity Program Creates $16.2 Billion in Annual Benefits to Subscribers

benton — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 17:40:13 +0000

Friday, March 15, 2024

Digital Beat

The Affordable Connectivity Program Creates $16.2 Billion in Annual Benefits to Subscribers

New analysis finds benefits of consistent internet access far outweigh ACP’s costs by nearly 2 to 1

Horrigan

Created by Congress in 2020 and renewed in 2021, the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is helping 23.3 million households afford internet access. But funding for ACP؅—the largest, most successful internet affordability program in U.S. history—is set to expire on May 30, 2024. This week, President Joe Biden proposed short- and long-term funding solutions in his budget. And a House bill to provide funding through the end of 2024 had 180 cosponsors in the House of Representatives.

For anyone who may question the investment in affordable broadband, I’ve just completed an analysis of existing research that demonstrates that ACP creates $16.2 billion in annual benefits to users of the service subsidy, nearly twice the $8.4 billion it costs for the $30 monthly subsidy (which increases to $75 per month in Tribal lands and high-cost areas). In other words, every $1 of ACP service subsidy results in close to $2 in benefits.

The upshot is clear: ACP can have positive impacts on beneficiaries’ lives – benefits that are much greater than the program’s costs. As policymakers consider the ACP’s future, they should do so knowing that the program’s costs have positive and substantial payoffs.

How I Arrived at These Numbers

The proposition that high-speed internet connectivity is beneficial is, on its face, not controversial. For years, elected officials, advocates, and business leaders have touted the rewards that broadband can create for local economies, health care delivery, and more. A number of research studies bear this out, showing that investments in broadband infrastructure and growth in broadband adoption among consumers each have economic payoffs.

Looking at the specific impacts from broadband programs is a different matter. Relatively few studies have looked at results from broadband initiatives, and those tend to focus on the Comcast Internet Essentials (IE) program. A 2019 study by Rosston and Wallsten showed that broadband adoption in areas served by Comcast was higher than it otherwise would be (i.e., one could attribute observed increases in low-income broadband adoption in areas where the IE offer was available to the presence of the IE discount). Zuo (2021) traced the IE offer to increases in household income, finding a positive relationship between broadband adoption increases brought about by IE and the likelihood of being employed (and thus experiencing income growth).

In my analysis, I build on some of this research in an examination of the ACP. The analysis leverages the research of Zuo and Dolfen, whose separate research found positive economic impacts to having internet access from employment effects and using ecommerce to shop.¹ The “special sauce” in my analysis is a careful parsing of the population of ACP subscribers to assess impacts. Specifically:

How many are new to broadband because of ACP?
How many are more consistent subscribers because the program has prevented lapses in service subscription that are a fact of life for many low-income households?
And how should we think about benefits for these different groups?

The $16.2 billion in benefits for ACP households the analysis finds only touch on a portion of the potential upsides. A household with new or consistent broadband service has the opportunity to use telehealth applications. Telehealth can save service providers money in avoided office visits and patients the time and costs of traveling to appointments. These benefits can be substantial – but they are not captured in our analysis.

ACP is an indispensable part of the universal service policy toolkit. It furthers universal service values of connectivity and inclusiveness, and is doing so at a time in our nation’s history when communications services shape how citizens cope with social and economic change. Analysis of ACP’s impact thus far shows that this investment in connectivity is paying off handsomely.

Notes:

Dolfen, Paul, Liran Einav, Peter J. Klenow, Benjamin Klopack, Jonathan D. Levin, Larry Levin, and Wayne Best. 2023. "Assessing the Gains from E-Commerce." American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 15 (1): 342-70.

For more, see The Affordable Connectivity Program Creates Benefits that Far Outweigh the Program's Costs

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

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Emergency Broadband Benefit/Emergency Connectivity Fund

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

FCC Commissioners Again Plead for Additional ACP Funding

benton — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:50:16 +0000

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Digital Beat

FCC Commissioners Again Plead for Additional ACP Funding

On March 14, the Federal Communications Commission adopted its annual assessment of whether broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion. In addition to considering deployment of physical broadband networks, the FCC also examined broadband affordability, adoption, availability, and equitable access to determine whether broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion to “all Americans.” In their remarks explaining their support for adopting the report, FCC Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez mentioned the wind down of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), the largest and most successful broadband affordability effort in U.S. history. As Congress considers providing additional support for ACP, the program is expected to run out of funding in the coming weeks.

Starks

"There remains much work to be done to close the digital divide," Commissioner Starks began. "One of those challenges is affordability. I want to focus, specifically, on this account because our ability to solve this aspect of the digital divide is in grave peril. I’m talking about the lack of funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program. Over 23 million American households have relied on the ACP to subscribe to broadband. These households will soon confront a hard choice between bill shock and disconnection. We should not let that happen.

"ACP has had a significant impact nationwide. Americans throughout the country enroll—in urban, rural, and Tribal communities. At the time of the ACP enrollment freeze last month, over 130,000 households in my home state of Kansas were enrolled, over 1,707,000 in Florida, 186,000 in Connecticut, and 470,000 in Virginia, the home states of my colleagues. Over 329,000 Tribal households were enrolled, and notably ACP has surpassed expectations for rural enrollment.

"ACP enrollees include young learners, grandparents, and everyone in between. To put it plainly, ACP is the most effective program we’ve ever had in helping low-income Americans get online and stay online. Those benefits are in jeopardy because we recently announced that April will be the last fully funded month in the Program. That means without additional funding from Congress, millions of Americans will lose access to affordable broadband. Millions of low-income American households will face monthly Internet bills that will skyrocket, and I fear many will be unable to remain connected. This fear is supported by data the Commission recently released. 77 percent of recent survey respondents said that losing their ACP benefit would disrupt their service by making them change their plan or drop service entirely. Nationwide, 49 percent of ACP households are subscription vulnerable, meaning that they find the Internet very difficult to fit into their monthly budgets and are constantly on the edge of disconnection. 68 percent of ACP households reported that they had inconsistent or zero connectivity prior to ACP, and 80 percent cited affordability as the reason for this lack of connectivity. I have heard directly from people about how having access to affordable, high-quality broadband has impacted their lives, and what the risk of losing access could mean. But, don’t take my word for it. Let me share one story with you.

"I met Debra, a dynamic grandmother, when I was recently in Illinois to discuss ACP. She is currently receiving federal housing assistance and moved to Lake County, an hour away from her family and church community. She told me that, thanks to ACP, she’s “hooked” on the Internet. She goes to church online every Sunday and speaks to her grandchildren and family once a week. She is taking advantage of her Internet connection to use MapQuest and explore her new community. She also started a knitting business online, and she told me when I met her just after Valentine’s Day last month that she has joined an online dating site for seniors. I wished her luck. When we discussed the potential end of the program, she asked me, 'What am I going to have to give up to keep what you’ve put in my life? Maybe eat less food?'

"The lack of an affordability program also risks harming the biggest investment the country has ever made in broadband infrastructure deployment, the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD). Without ACP, BEAD’s $42.5 billion to deploy broadband networks to reach millions of unserved and underserved communities, primarily in rural communities, will not reach as far as it could. ACP makes building out to these rural homes less risky and less expensive, because more of the serviceable population can afford to subscribe. Indeed, a recent study concluded that ACP reduces the subsidy needed to incentivize building in rural areas by a whopping 25 percent. With ACP, states can stretch their BEAD dollars farther and can connect some of the 24 million Americans identified in our section 706 Report.

"I’m an optimist, so I remain hopeful that Congress will fund ACP going forward. And there is reason for hope. President Biden has asked Congress to fund ACP as part of his budget, and recently called again on Congress to extend its funding. There is a bipartisan, bicameral effort to fund ACP – the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which I am proud to strongly support. Additionally, nearly 400 other government leaders, industry, and public interest groups support the Extension Act as well. At the state and local level, 26 bipartisan governors and 174 mayors have urged Congress to act. I stand ready and willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that these Congressional proposals bear fruit, so that next year when we adopt our 2025 section 706 Report, we can highlight that the availability of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans has improved because Americans continue to have access to affordable broadband."

Gomez

Speaking after Starks, Commissioner Gomez said, "Today’s Report finds that 24 million Americans lack access to fixed broadband connectivity. More must be done to ensure that broadband is being reasonably and timely deployed to all Americans, and partcularly those that have been historically underserved—consumers who live in rural, tribal, and low-income communities. More must also be done to ensure that when broadband is deployed, that it affordable to consumers. Ensuring connectivity is affordable will ensure that once deployed, networks can be sustained.

"Unfortunately, one of the FCC’s greatest tools to closing the digital divide and supporting connectivity, the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), will end next month. For low-income rural Americans, the ACP has been a lifeline to ensuring they have access to connectivity. For rural Americans who are yet to be served, the end of ACP means that the Broadband, Equity, Access Deployment (BEAD) Program’s $42.5 billion investment in broadband infrastructure may not reach them. These rural consumers have been waiting for connectivity to finally come to them—but may be disappointed when the buildout does not go as far as expected.

"We’ve made so much progress. But as today’s Report finds, more must be done. The ACP is a key tool that is necessary to continue our progress to connectivity everyone everywhere, particularly, those in rural and hard to reach areas."

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

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Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

How the FCC Got to 100/20

benton — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:30:14 +0000

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Digital Beat

How the FCC Got to 100/20

In its 2024 Broadband Deployment Report, the Federal Communications Commission raised its fixed speed benchmark for broadband to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 20 Mbps upload. The FCC last updated these benchmark speeds in 2015 when it set the speeds at 25/3 Mbps.¹

There is an obvious, short answer to how the FCC reached its 100/20 determination: Congress. In the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress determined that locations without access to networks that can deliver 25/3 Mbps service are "unserved" and locations without access to 100/20 Mbps service are "underserved." Obviously, the FCC could not continue to set standards for broadband internet access service that Congress considered inadequate.

But the FCC did not rely solely on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to reset the broadband standard. The longer answer to today's question is that the FCC applied a five-step examination to come to 100/20. And the FCC showed its math in the report adopted on March 14. Below, we look at the FCC's reasoning, which is important not for this decision, but in this annual process of determining what the correct benchmark should be going forward.

I. Recent Congressional Action

We start with the FCC's acknowledgment that Congress has established a new standard for broadband. "We find that Congress’s determination that areas receiving broadband speeds of less than 100/20 Mbps are not adequately served necessitates that the Commission raise its fixed speed benchmark accordingly," the report reads.

Although this may be the most important development in broadband policy impacting this decision about benchmark speeds, Congress is not likely to return to this in the coming years.

II. What Broadband Providers are Deploying to American Households

In its examination, the FCC found that deployment of infrastructure capable of delivering service of at least 100/20 Mbps is widespread and the speeds marketed by many internet service providers (ISPs) generally substantially exceed 25/3 Mbps.

Deployment

Data from the FCC's Broadband Data Collection show widespread deployment of download speeds faster than 25 Mbps, and that deployment of at least 100/20 Mbps is the norm. Deployment trends suggest an overwhelming majority of providers are already offering speeds of at least 100 Mbps download: approximately 93 percent of Americans had access to a terrestrial fixed broadband service with download speeds of at least 100 Mbps in December 2022. In fact, FCC deployment data indicate that since 2018, more than 90 percent of the population has had access to terrestrial fixed broadband service with download speeds of at least 100 Mbps.

Marketing

Most of the nation’s largest providers focus their marketing efforts on fixed broadband speeds of at least 100 Mbps download, making slower offerings increasingly irrelevant. For example:

Charter markets 300 Mbps as its slowest internet speed.
Verizon appears to market three tiers of fixed service with discounts for low-income customers, with the slowest tier being 300 Mbps.
Google Fiber appears to market only 1, 2, 5, and 8 Gbps service.

III. Speeds Required for Common Applications

As the New York Public Service Commission told the FCC, “[U]se of the current 25/3 Mbps benchmark...is simply out of step with a typical customer’s broadband needs.”

The FCC finds that the requirements for high-quality applications necessitating higher speeds have dramatically increased since 2015 and appear to trend towards requiring more bandwidth over time.

A combination of remote applications, streaming, and other needs play a role in household broadband use. Services such as video and music streaming applications necessitate access to higher speeds. For example, as 4K video increases in popularity, individual households may have an increasing number of 25 Mbps video streams serving applications such as video conferencing, telehealth, and remote learning, in addition to streaming of video entertainment and gaming. Fast speeds are vital to enable remote applications to work properly. Graphics-intensive telework, alone, can require 45 Mbps or more.

The FCC believes that broad consumer demand for 100/20 Mbps service alone sufficiently demonstrates that the practical reality of consumer broadband usage often requires speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps, regardless of whether the FCC has delineated a specific “use case.”

First, occasional downloads of very large files can be bandwidth-intensive. Second, it is important to account for larger households—as of 2023, approximately 21 percent of all U.S. households had four or more people. Households of all sizes must have sufficient bandwidth to satisfy their needs. In addition, the number of connected devices per household continues to grow. Taking these factors into account suggests that fixed broadband download/upload needs could easily exceed 100/20 Mbps.

IV. Consumer Choice

The FCC examined data regarding consumer choice and found that consumers are adopting higher speeds where they are available.

Almost 68 percent of households have subscribed to services meeting a 100 Mbps download speed threshold where it is available.

The number of American households subscribing to services meeting a 100 Mbps download speed threshold increased from approximately 57.4 million in December 2018 to approximately 89.4 million in December 2022. As of December 2022, the mean download speed for all residential fixed broadband subscriptions was 439 Mbps while the median residential download speed was 300 Mbps. Nearly 79 percent of all residential subscriptions had a download speed of at least 100 Mbps.

Consumers are not only subscribing to faster speeds, but also using more bandwidth. According to OpenVault, average U.S. household bandwidth consumption increased by approximately 86 percent between the end of 2019 and the end of 2023.² OpenVault has previously observed that such a dramatic increase in bandwidth consumption “confirms the linkage between significant growth trajectories in both bandwidth consumption and faster speed adoption."

In addition, many ISPs upgraded the speed provided to customers to accommodate their consumers’ need for higher bandwidth services. Current consumer broadband usage involves an increasing number of streams serving applications ranging from telehealth, remote learning, streaming video and gaming, and video conferencing/telework. For example:

Telehealth has become an established method of providing and receiving healthcare; one poll of medical group leaders found that 72 percent of medical groups expect patient demand for telehealth to stay the same or increase in 2023.³
With regard to telework, a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey conducted in the third quarter of 2022 of private-sector establishments found that over 27 percent have some or all of their employees teleworking some or all of the time (with over 11 percent of respondents reporting that all of their employees teleworked all of the time). Over 95 percent expect current levels of telework to stay the same over the next six months.⁴
Increased levels of online learning are likely here to stay beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, virtual school enrollment across ten states increased 176 percent in the 2021-22 school year, as compared to the 2019-20 school year. And even students who are attending school in person still rely on home connectivity for schoolwork outside of school hours.

With approximately 21 percent of U.S. households having four or more people and an increasing number of homebuyers seeking multigenerational housing, this can lead to substantial household bandwidth demand. In addition, the number of connected devices per U.S. household continues to grow, from an average of 13 in 2021 to an average of 17 in 2023. Households increasingly have multiple people demanding bandwidth at the same time and need higher speeds. In multiple-person households, multiple people make use of applications simultaneously, which requires extra capacity.

The FCC does not anticipate usage decreasing, and accordingly must recognize that households of all sizes must have sufficient bandwidth to satisfy their needs.

V. Other Relevant Broadband Programs

The FCC, the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service, the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications Administration (NTIA), and the Department of Treasury all administer federal broadband deployment programs. The FCC examined the requirements in these various programs to inform its decision on benchmark speeds.

A number of programs and initiatives at the federal, state, local, and Tribal levels already require speeds at or above 100/20 Mbps.

At the federal level, the NTIA's Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD), Treasury's Capital Projects Fund (CPF), and RUS's ReConnect Program all require supported networks to be capable of offering service at 100/20 Mbps or better.

In 2021, the FCC's Task Force for Reviewing the Connectivity and Technology Needs of Agriculture in the United States recommended that the FCC increase the benchmark speed to 100/20 Mbps. The Task Force determined that 25/3 Mbps is insufficient to enable innovation and utilization of precision agriculture and for transferring large amounts of data from field or farm to the cloud for storage.

Already at the FCC, the Enhanced Alternative Connect America Cost Model (Enhanced ACAM) program, the Bringing Puerto Rico Together (Uniendo a Puerto Rico) Fund, the Connect US Virgin Islands Fund, and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund are all supporting deployment of networks meeting or exceeding the 100/20 Mbps benchmark.

Many states have already adopted broadband standards that meet or exceed 100/20 Mbps including:

The California Broadband Council's Broadband Action Plan 2020 set 100 Mbps as a goal.
The Iowa Department of Management's Empower Rural Iowa Broadband Grant Program supports networks capable of 100/20 Mbps and 100/100 Mbps service.
The Maine Connectivity Authority's Broadband Service Triennial Strategic Plan 2022-24 declares 25 Mbps/3 Mbps insufficient and designates broadband service as 100/100 Mbps.
Maryland's Network Infrastructure Grant Program defines“broadband service” as providing “the minimum data rate of one hundred (100) megabits per second downstream and twenty (20) megabits per second upstream.”
Michigan's Realizing Opportunities with Broadband Infrastructure Networks defined “broadband service” as supporting “a symmetrical rate of at least 100 megabits per second downstream and upstream.”
Mississippi law defines “broadband service” as mass-market retail service at speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps.
Nebraska law sets broadband speeds at 100/20 Mbps.
In 2019, the North Dakota Legislative Branch noted that its statewide objective is Gigabit connectivity and that “more than 75 percent of North Dakotans already have access to Gigabit broadband delivered in more than 325 communities.”
Washington State set speed benchmarks for broadband provided via cable modem, powerlines, and microwave at 100/20 Mbps, 100/100 Mbps, and 100/20 Mbps, respectively.

Conclusion

In its broadband deployment report, the FCC explains its reasoning behind the decision to raise the fixed speed benchmark. Trends in deployment, marketing, applications, and consumer choice—as well as Congressional action and standards adopted in various federal and state broadband programs—all play a role in determining the benchmarks. And the FCC notes that it intends to continue to examine evidence and the record similarly in the future, including the use of new and improved data sources to the extent they become available.

Understanding the FCC's process can help stakeholders ensure that the FCC sets realistic speed benchmarks and accurately reflects the availability of broadband services nationwide.

Notes:

Prior to that, the benchmark speeds were 4/1 Mbps.
See OpenVault, Broadband Insights Report (OVBI) 4Q23, at 4 (2024), https://openvault.com/resources/ovbi/
MGMA Stat, Telehealth Utilization and Patient Demand in 2023: Best Guesses and Best Practices (Nov. 3, 2022), https://www.mgma.com/data/data-stories/telehealth-utilization-and-patient-demand-in-2023. See also Tanya Albert Henry, Millions of Medicare Patients Kept Telehealth Habit Post-Vaccines, AMA (Feb. 6, 2023), https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/digital/millions-medicare-patients-kept-telehealth-habit-postvaccines (finding that about 4 million Medicare patients received medical care through telehealth in each of the first two quarters in 2022); Jiang Li, Telemedicine And Telehealth In 2023 And Beyond: From Leveling Out To Leveling Up (Dec 27, 2022), https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/12/27/telemedicine-and-telehealth-in-2023-and-beyond-from-leveling-out-to-leveling-up/?sh=5a02ef654843; FAIR Health, Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker, https://www.fairhealth.org/fh-trackers/telehealth.
See Bureau of Labor Statistics 3Q2022 Survey. See also Jennifer Liu, More Americans are Now Working Fully Remote than 3 Months Ago, Despite Fewer WFH Job Openings, CNBC (Feb. 13, 2023) https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/13/remote-work-ticked-up-in-january-and-could-signal-the-future-of-wfh.html (noting that 46% of respondents in a January 2023 LinkedIn survey are working a hybrid or remote schedule); Kim Parker, About a Third of U.S. Workers Who Can Work From Home Now Do So All the Time, Pew Research Center (Mar. 30, 2023) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/03/30/about-a-third-of-us-workers-who-can-workfrom-home-do-so-all-the-time/ (finding that 59% of hybrid workers work from home three or more days in a typical week).

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

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Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities

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Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

A Leader for Allegan County's Broadband Journey

benton — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 12:00:05 +0000

Monday, March 11, 2024

Digital Beat

A Leader for Allegan County's Broadband Journey

As more communities devise their own broadband solutions, leveraging the upcoming funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, what makes for successful efforts that are responsive to community needs? This is the last of six case studies seeking to understand the stories of broadband community champions and the factors that contributed to their success. A final analysis will identify the characteristics of effective broadband leaders, and develop a taxonomy of those working to improve broadband access in their communities in official and unofficial capacities.
This research is supported by the Marjorie & Charles Benton Opportunity Fund.

Dagg

Allegan County’s journey to universal connectivity has overcome a number of obstacles: accurately determining the extent of connectivity gaps, exploring potential strategic solutions, and tackling costs in a manner palatable to the community. Advancing this initiative required a leader with deep industry knowledge and a strong connection to the community. A leader who would refuse to take no for an answer and demand that incumbent internet service providers work with her, rather than against her.

Jill Dunham, the Broadband Project Manager for Allegan County, has been instrumental in the county’s journey. Currently, only 472 of over 44,000 households remain without a funded plan for a high-speed internet connection, and Jill continues to drive the efforts to connect these remaining homes, too.

Situated on the shores of Lake Michigan in the southwestern region of the state, Allegan County is primarily rural, with a few small urban areas. The majority of its inhabitants are Caucasian, but Hispanic and African American populations are growing. The local economy is bolstered by sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism.

For almost two decades, Allegan County has been actively pursuing widespread broadband internet access, engaging in public discussions and conducting surveys among residents. By 2022, the U.S. Census reported that 89 percent of households in Allegan County had a broadband internet subscription. With a career history in telecommunications and knowing Allegan County very well, Jill knew this could not be accurate. While internet connectivity in urban areas of the county was generally reliable, rural areas relied on high-cost satellite service or cell phone hotspots—neither of which qualify as high-speed.

A Determined, Persistent Advocate

Jill Dunham

In 2021, Allegan County decided to use all of its federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for infrastructure improvements, focused on broadband and water systems. When the county established the role of Broadband Project Manager, Jill Dunham knew this was her “dream job.” As the chair of the Allegan County Democratic Party, Jill had been voluntarily aiding in assessing the community's connectivity issues. With her 40-year background in telecommunications, Jill longed for a role that connected her more closely with her community and allowed her to use her extensive expertise to help her neighbors in need. She believed she was the ideal candidate, and the county agreed. Known for her commitment to community organizing, Jill has a proven track record of collaboration, including serving on her local school board and leading bond initiatives. She attributes her success to her belief in the importance of incorporating diverse viewpoints in discussions, saying, "I’m successful because I believe all perspectives need to be included in conversations to see what each other doesn’t see."

Jill’s goal was to build a comprehensive plan that accounted for 100 percent broadband infrastructure access in Allegan County. While Jill favored municipal broadband as a solution, it didn’t make sense for the county to run a network that would either overbuild existing areas that had internet or only serve the least desirable areas from a business perspective. She was willing to put aside her standpoint to find a pragmatic answer. As a next step, she met with one of the leading incumbent providers in the community to better understand the cost of building broadband infrastructure to the unserved homes. The incumbent’s number, $45 million, was much less than the county anticipated, so it decided to open a Request for Proposals (RFP) for any provider to bid on.

To develop the RFP, Jill needed a granular map of unserved households. This was more difficult than she anticipated. In her role with the Allegan County Democratic Party, Jill worked with the Michigan Broadband Cooperative to understand the Federal Communications Commission’s connectivity maps. Later, she leveraged provider connectivity data, county survey results, and RFP responses to build a case that the community could support.

After signing a nondisclosure agreement with the nine providers that responded to the RFP, it was evident that the data that came back greatly overstated coverage. Places that county leadership personally knew had no infrastructure were represented as served by the incumbents. Jill was determined to understand the real state of connectivity. For example, during a teleconference, she convinced a sales representative from a provider to screen share their internal coverage maps, and Jill secretly took photos of the screen, which showed different information than what she had been initially given. She pushed back on the provider by focusing on her own township, where she knew firsthand that the coverage was significantly overstated. With Jill stressing the importance that no residents be left out, the provider came back with a much more accurate version of its map. Ultimately, a majority of the providers shared current infrastructure maps after Jill's unrelenting pressure. The accurate data allowed Allegan County to release the RFP to get a reasonable estimate of the cost of the project.

Jill attributes much of her success to her ability to build relationships. Within her first three days as the Broadband Project Manager, she’d talked with all 24 townships in the county.

“It was essential to get to know them to start communicating and dispelling their cynicism,” Jill said. “Most of the townships were incredulous that this could happen and they didn’t believe we could do it at first.”

Building relationships with providers, over time, was also key, along with her “indomitable spirit” and refusal to back down from a challenge. “When I decide to do something, it will happen. I’m a git-er-done farm girl.”

Jill started with a belief that she could find a way. She began with a vision and resolved to fill in the gaps n Allegan County over time. “I listen to my detractors, and just keep moving obstacles when they show up,” she said. This persistent vision, strong connections with individuals and the community, and an openness to all viewpoints motivated the townships and locals to work together and back her strategy for achieving total broadband connectivity.

What's Next

Video | Allegan County ushers in digital era: First of thousands connected to high-speed internet

The RFP was released in 2022. 123Net responded to the 2022 RFP and was ultimately chosen to construct infrastructure throughout the county. Allegan is contributing $17.7 million in ARPA funding. 123Net is contributing 25 percent of the cost of the build itself, and won $29 million in Michigan’s Realizing Opportunity with Broadband Infrastructure Networks (ROBIN) Grant Program. Eleven thousand households will be served through ROBIN funding, and approximately 4,500 more households will be connected by several other providers who were awarded Rural Digital Opportunity Funds from the Federal Communications Commission or ReConnect funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In November 2023, 123Net began providing service to its first customers in Allegan County who previously lacked connectivity. The project is expected to be completed by 2025. However, there are still a few areas with no infrastructure and no funded plan to reach them. Jill is committed to securing more federal funds and relentlessly pursuing cooperation with service providers to ensure all remaining locations are connected, down to a six-household area in Saugatuck State Park that is still unconnected. She expressed her characteristic determination, stating, "I'm going to hunt them all down."

See more in this series

Dr. Pierrette Renee Dagg, Ph.D is a Benton Institute Digital Opportunity Fund Fellow, the Director of Technology Impact Research at Merit Network. The aim of her work is to bridge the gap between academic scholarship and practical application to advance issues of technology understanding and information equity.

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

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Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities

Modernizing How We Assess Broadband Affordability

benton — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 12:00:53 +0000

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Digital Beat

Modernizing How We Assess Broadband Affordability

Digital Equity Practitioners Should Apply Modern Approaches to Affordability Assessment But Will Need Support to Do So

Dailey

Best practice methods for assessing affordability developed and endorsed by academic and government affordability experts can provide much greater precision in assessing need thereby enabling more informed and more targeted digital equity interventions. However, recent experience in Washington state has revealed that few of us in the digital equity realm are yet comfortable applying these methods, or, indeed, are even aware of them. To clarify the problem with current methods and the possibility for improvement, we focus on one key component of digital equity—affordable broadband.

Digital Equity Practitioners Are Confused About How to Assess the Affordability Gap in Their Communities

Roach

It’s been 14 years since research informing the National Broadband Plan found that the internet is essential for Americans at all income levels, and unsurprisingly, affordability is a factor for “non-adoption.” Yet, there is not yet a consensus methodology for determining what “affordable” broadband might be. Nor do we have a definitive way of assessing how many people might be cost-burdened. In the absence of a consensus methodology to assess broadband affordability, a spotty patchwork of different measures and thresholds has been in use. For example, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has looked at what people are willing to pay for the Internet, which is, at best, a loose indicator of something people need for work, school, medical care, and other essentials. To our knowledge, all programs to support less-resourced households and communities to attain sufficient internet service rely on different multipliers of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) federal poverty guidelines—the simplified version of the U.S. Official Poverty Measure (OPM). This is problematic because the OPM is a blunt instrument for measuring need— a relic of the 1960s—an era when relevant data was far more sparse and the analytic tools of governance relied more on paper and pencil than computational analyses. Though we've long since passed the analytic limitations of the 1960s, legacy practices keep us in the past in terms of assessing affordability.

Why Are The Current (Yet Outdated) Measures of Assessing Affordability a Problem?

Millions of Americans fall between the somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent guidelines for prevailing digital equity interventions. For example, the Affordable Connectivity Program has provided subsidized internet service to households at 200 percent of the Official Poverty Measure (OPM). However, affordability experts looking at Washington state in 2023 found 225,677 Washington state households were making more than 200 percent of the OPM, yet were not making enough to cover basic necessities such as food and housing. The same analysis applied across the US has similar results, with millions of households found to be falling between current program guidelines and actual self-sufficiency.

Affordability Experts Want Us To “Modernize” How We Assess Affordability

Digital equity practitioners should be aware of two recent developments:

The National Academies of Sciences recently published “consensus recommendations” on how to assess affordability that were developed by a diverse and esteemed panel of affordability experts and
Digital tools make it possible for those of us who are not affordability experts to apply the methods that affordability experts want us to use.

Affordability Experts (Still) Want Us To Transition Away From The Official Poverty Measure To More Accurate Measures—And New Tools Make It More Possible To Do So

If you haven’t familiarized yourself with the OPM methodology, it will likely come as a shock that it does not consider all of the key factors that determine what people can afford in real life. The OPM methodology is flawed because it only relies on one “market basket” necessity (food). It does not consider other essential costs (such as shelter, health insurance, and so forth). Further, it does not consider that the cost of essential necessities varies by location. Though the income threshold for poverty status does change by the number of people in a household, the count is “raw,” not taking into account that basic necessities are different depending on a person’s age and circumstance. For example, many households comprised of working parents with young children need daycare.

The OPM methodology was a great advancement when it was developed back in the 1960s. In that era, multivariate analyses were done on costly computers the size of your living room, which were only available to a handful of large businesses and government agencies. Data to give a more complete picture was sparse. In that context, it made sense for demographers to greatly simplify how to assess need. According to anti-poverty experts, the factors that influence affordability for a given person include not only income but also what people actually have to pay for all of their essential goods and services such as food, housing, health care, and so on. This varies by location. For example, households in the northeast will pay more for home heating than those in the southwest. And the same level of broadband service may cost more in one county than in another. So, a better measure of affordability than the OPM takes into account all essential basic costs as they actually occur in a given location. Additionally, a better measure of affordability considers that essential costs vary for different households.

Affordability experts have been advocating for the inclusion of these other factors (actual costs of basic necessities + household composition + income) since the 1990s. “Market basket” comparisons that track several types of essential costs have been in use among affordability experts for three decades.

The 2023 National Academies consensus recommendations renew the call for this approach. One important difference from three decades ago is that we now have regularly published public data needed to apply the modern approach to assessing affordability. Another important change is that we can create digital tools that enable those of us who are not experts to apply these more complicated yet more accurate assessments of affordability. For example, the Workforce Development Council of Seattle - King County’s (WDC) ) online “Self-Sufficiency Calculator” is a public-facing tool that enables individuals across the state to assess their own self-sufficiency status. The calculator is integrated into WDC’s program offerings—both helping those who can benefit from their services to self-screen and providing rich data for WDC program management.

Behind this simple-to-use tool is the modern methodology for assessing affordability: A matrix of 719 different variations of household composition based on age and other socio-demographic factors developed at the University of Washington along with the most recent data on the cost of 17 different basic necessities by county. With a bit of training and support, hundreds of direct service organizations along with local planners, government agencies, businesses, and foundations across the United States who want to accurately assess need, have been incorporating these modern methods of assessing affordability developed and recommended by affordability experts into planning, program development, and assessment. The Self-Sufficiency Calculator shows what is possible when affordability experts tailor the modern methodology to create a fit-for-purpose assessment tool.

We Need to Invest in Learning Modern Affordability Methods and in Developing Fit-for-Purpose Analytic Tools to Make Best Use of Them

The consensus recommendations of affordability experts and the ability to create analytic tools that enable the rest of us to apply those recommendations make it nearly inevitable that these approaches will influence the future of how we assess broadband affordability. The question is whether that transition will take months, years, or decades. The more quickly we can authentically integrate them into our intervention planning and program assessments, the sooner we can close the broadband affordability gap.

However, there is a learning curve to adopting and making the best use of these more accurate ways of assessing affordability. Without support to make the transition, our progress in assessing—and therefore addressing—the broadband affordability gap will be hindered.

For example, the University of Washington team behind the Self-Sufficiency Calculator co-developed it with the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County. The WDC provides training to organizations that deploy the calculator. The UW scientists they partnered with also spend a good deal of time working with funders, non-profits, government agencies, and businesses who want to apply the methodology to program planning and assessment. Likewise, broadband experts will need the same type of support to design fit-for-purpose analytic tools and then apply those tools. The trade-off for this level of investment is that the modern approaches to assessing affordability can consistently and readily be applied by planners, program managers, evaluators, and all else who need such knowledge at levels of government, NGOs, industry, think tanks, and so forth. This could greatly accelerate addressing the broadband affordability gap.

Recommendation: Make a Field-Level Investment in Modernizing Affordability Assessment

Three field-level investments could greatly accelerate the adoption of best practice affordability assessment methods.

1) Train the digital equity field on modern affordability assessment methods. Modern affordability assessment approaches are more accurate because they are more comprehensive. The price of greater accuracy is that there is a learning curve to understanding and applying modern affordability assessment methods. Trainings on the what-how-and-why of modern affordability assessment methodologies will help digital equity practitioners understand the benefits of modern approaches to affordability.

2) Bring affordability and digital equity experts together to vision and co-design. A critical step toward successful application of modern affordability assessment methods for digital equity interventions is in visioning how a more accurate assessment of need can innovate digital equity interventions at the local, state, national, and tribal levels. Workshops that help digital equity practitioners become conversant with modern affordability assessment methods set the stage for such visioning. Ideally, a series of such workshops would set such a foundation and then respectively focus on different extant areas of digital equity interventions: infrastructure build out such as NTIA’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, reduced cost internet such as the Affordable Connectivity Program, and so forth. Such workshops can support the directive currently upon states to design middle-class affordability plans because modern affordability assessment tools can give a more accurate and detailed account of exactly which households are struggling within the middle-class demographic.

At the same time, workshops that bring together these two types of domain knowledge can support the efforts of affordability experts to refine their assessment methodologies pertaining to digital equity, specifically, A) the technical requirements that constitute a basic level of essential broadband service for connectivity and devices, and B) the best means of regularly tracking the cost of service and devices that meet those requirements at the local level across the U.S.

3) Develop fit-for-purpose analytic tools that simplify the application of modern affordability measurements for digital equity assessment and evaluation. A final field-level investment that can help instantiate the co-design of digital equity and affordability practitioners will be the creation of fit-for-purpose analytic tools that make it easy for planners, program leads, community members, service providers, and others to get the same field-level view of need, yet tailored to their analytic requirements.

Join our state digital equity revenue bill development task force. We’ll be using the Self-Sufficiency Standard for evaluation and benchmarking. We will meet twice a month initially with a goal of building draft model legislation by the end of June. Email Sabrina Roach for more information and to RSVP: Sabrina@makedigitalequity.com.

The one-hour meetings will be Wednesdays at 2 PM Eastern / 1 PM Central / 12 PM Mountain / 11 AM Pacific:

March 27th

April 10th and 24th

May 8th and 22nd

June 5th and 19th

Dharma Dailey is a Research Associate at the eScience Institute at the University of Washington working to understand how human-centered design can be incorporated into data intensive research. She is the Human-Centered Data Scientist for UW’s Data Science for Social Good Program, mentoring teams in exploring the social dimensions of their projects. She recently spent two years leading a coalition of Data for Good organizers to document and share better practices for running university-based Data Science for Social Good programs and is currently evaluating UW DSSG’s impact. She is also Part-Time Faculty in the Computing & Software Systems Division of the University of Washington Bothell School of STEM where she teaches User Research and Interaction Design.

Since 2011, Sabrina Roach has fostered digital equity through collaboration with legislators and public stakeholders. She co-led bill development on the Washington State Digital Equity Act in 2022, securing $50 million in funding. In her role as the Washington State University Extension Digital Equity Lead on an $8 million contract with the Washington State Department of Commerce, engaged 2,000 stakeholders, all 39 counties, and 24 Tribes in digital equity planning. Sabrina's impact extends nationally, as she played a pivotal role in developing the original Digital Navigator model in 2020 while at the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. As the founder of Make Digital Equity, she continues her work on bill development with WA Digital Equity Partners and guides a digital navigator consortium in partnership with the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County and community based organizations.

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

Share this edition:

Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities