Wednesday, April 5, 2023
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Remarks by Vice President Harris on Digital Inclusion in Africa
Let’s close the digital divide once and for all for Black communities
Digital Inclusion
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Digital Inclusion
Since digital technologies first emerged about 30 years ago, Black Americans have trailed in terms of access. This “digital divide” is real, it’s important and we can do better. According to our analysis of data from the American Community Survey, 40 percent of Black Americans do not have high-speed, fixed broadband at home, compared to 28 percent of whites. In rural areas of the south with significant Black populations, white households are more than half as likely to have broadband, and in some cities, such as Baltimore and Chicago, the disparity is even greater. There is reason for optimism: There has already been progress and the resources are available. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $65 billion to improve broadband access and digital equity. But while money is necessary, it is not enough: It needs to be spent with purpose and precision. Five principles can help:
- Know where the gaps are. Solving a problem starts with defining it. Governments, therefore, need to count all unserved broadband-serviceable locations.
- Make an explicit commitment. What gets measured gets managed: If narrowing the digital divide is a stated goal, it is more likely to be met.
- Listen to a wide range of stakeholders. Talking to residents, local government officials, non-profit leaders, utilities and internet service providers (ISPs) can provide a deeper, more nuanced understanding of barriers to access, and thus provide helpful guidelines on how to overcome them.
- Improve access to subsidies. Just because money is available does not mean it will get to those who qualify for it. Coordinating with other government programs, such as income, food and medical assistance, to improve outreach for the Affordable Connectivity Program.
- Work with partners. Closing the digital divide is not one thing: It comprises information, access and skills. So it makes sense to bring in a diverse network of partners, with a wide range of expertise.
[Danielle Hinton is an associate partner in McKinsey & Company’s Washington (DC) office. John B. Horrigan is a senior adviser to McKinsey, also based in Washington.]
Innovative Systems of Mitchell (SD) commissioned a survey of broadband and bundled rates paid by rural residents. This is the eighth year of the survey. The 2022 survey focused on zip codes that are completely rural in order to find out about rural rates. The results come from surveys administered to 841 rural residents. The study showed that the average rate paid for rural broadband increased from $68 per month in 2021 to $71 in 2022. The average bill for customers that bundle broadband with video increased from $114 in 2021 to $121 in 2022. I was not surprised to see rural rates climbing because rates seem to be moving upward everywhere. For example, in urban markets, all of the major cable companies have had rate increases. A lot of other ISPs have followed suit in an attempt to keep ahead of inflation. But nationwide averages don’t likely tell the story everywhere in rural markets. It has been my experience, having worked in dozens of counties in the last few years, that rural rates generally have a lot more geographic variance than urban rates. In any given rural county, there generally is only a tiny handful of ISPs with significant market penetration, and the rates of those specific ISPs might be significantly different than even in a neighboring county.
Blackfoot Communications, a provider serving rural areas of Montana and Idaho, is getting set to begin work on seven fiber deployment projects for which the company was awarded $60 million through Montana’s ConnectMT program. Blackfoot will contribute an additional $16 million toward total project costs of $76 million. Funding was awarded in December 2022, but as Chris Laslovich, public affairs manager for Blackfoot, said any company planning fiber deployments using buried cable in Montana (as Blackfoot plans to do) has to wait until this time of year or later to begin construction. Charter Communications, another big winner in the program, was awarded $110 million. Bret Picciolo, senior director of communications for the company, said the company expects to start work in 2023 on all the projects for which it won funding. Those, also, are fiber broadband projects. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte announced in December 2022 that the state broadband office had recommended $309 million in awards for 61 projects through the ConnectMT program. The program was funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
Maps of broadband availability are critical inputs for targeting public programs aiming to address disparities in digital equity, such as the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. In 2020, the Broadband DATA Act called on the Federal Communications Commission to create new, more granular, maps of broadband availability in the US. Although the new National Broadband Map (NBM), released in November 2022, still relies on self-reported data from internet service providers (ISPs), a key feature of these new broadband maps is that they are constantly evolving. Congress directed the FCC to develop a challenge process by which state, local, and tribal governments, along with members of the public, could contest ISPs’ claimed service availability. In addition to the two major updates per year when ISPs report the locations they currently serve, the National Broadband Map changes every few weeks due to a number of factors. Our question is: how has the map been evolving so far?
[Shaddi Hasan is an assistant professor of computer science at Virginia Tech.]
Broadband Infrastructure
Lumos to Invest More Than $56 Million to Expand Fiber Optic Internet Access in North Carolina
Lumos, a leading 100 percent fiber optic internet and total home wi-fi service provider in the Mid-Atlantic, announced its $56 million investment to bring fiber services to residents and businesses of New Hanover County and the City of Wilmington (NC). Through this expansion, Lumos will provide portions of Wilmington and Carolina Beach, as well as the communities of Ogden, Myrtle Grove, Castle Hayne, and Wrightsboro (NC), with 655 miles of the latest fiber optic technology – bringing the community a network capable of delivering up to 385 times faster upload speeds and up to 30 times faster download speeds than traditional cable. The expansion highlights the company’s rapid growth and development plans as the third new market for Lumos in 2023. The engineering work will start in mid-2023.
Brightspeed, the nation’s fifth-largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC), announced it has officially started selling its gigabit internet service via its newly built next-generation Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network just six months after officially launching as a standalone company. Homes and small businesses in parts of Alabama, Indiana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that previously had limited high-speed broadband internet options can now subscribe to Brightspeed Fiber Internet, the company’s newly launched XGS-PON (10-Gigabit-capable Symmetric Passive Optical Network) fiber broadband service. This launch represents the first phase of Brightspeed’s high-speed fiber deployment. The company plans to reach 1 million homes and small businesses by the end of 2023.
AT&T, T-Mobile, UScellular and Verizon sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission saying that they agreed to voluntary commitments related to air traffic safety and the deployment of C-band spectrum. “These voluntary commitments will support full-power deployments across C-band, and are crafted to minimize the operational impact on our C-band operations,” the letter stated. The letter noted that in February 2020, the FCC adopted licensing and technical rules that serve to ensure coexistence between new C-band operations and radio altimeters operating more than 220 megahertz away in the 4.2-4.4 GHz band. That’s worth noting because the wireless industry, including through CTIA, argued that, thanks in part to the 220 MHz guard band, C-band signals were far enough away from the altimeters to not cause harmful interference. But because older altimeters don’t “stay in their lane,” so to speak, they are susceptible to interference. Included in their filing with the FCC are a list of C-band licensee voluntary commitments for certain periods of time and a list of 188 airports where C-band mitigation efforts are in effect. The operators pledged to continue to coordinate with the FAA on all outdoor base stations near the 188 airports and to submit to the FAA confidential coordination information at least 30 days prior to transmission. Some of the commitments last until 2028.
On April 1, 2023, US Vice President Kamala Harris delivered remarks in Lusaka, Zambia on US partnership with African nations to promote digital inclusion efforts in the continent. "The United States is committed to strengthening our partnerships across the continent of Africa with governments, with the private sector, and civil society," said the Vice President. In her remarks, Harris highlighted digital disparities faced by populations in Africa and funding opportunities announced by the White House. Read more here.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and David L. Clay II (dclay AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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