Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

On Wednesday, January 15, the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing on diversity in the media market. In announcing the hearing, Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr.

Anne Schwieger, Boston’s broadband and digital equity advocate, explains: “Broadband is best understood as an ecology that allows places and people to adapt, evolve, and create.” But for too many people, the digital skills needed to use broadband effectively are too elusive. Governments—with nonprofits, private broadband providers, and community support—are working to ensure that broadband is not just deployed but used. That’s a multifaceted effort that depends on trust and resources.

This week we learned that the Federal Communications Commission will vote on its latest plan to subsidize broadband deployment in rural areas at its January meeting. The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, first proposed by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai back in August, will provide up to $20.4 billion over the next decade to support the deployment of broadband networks in those parts of rural America that currently lack fixed broadband service that meets the FCC's baseline speed standards (25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload).

What happens when a prime time TV show becomes a potential healthcare policy direction, plus a side helping of broadband adoption strategy? An episode of the NBC TV medical melodrama New Amsterdam inspired a five-city telehealth pilot project involving barbershops and hair salons. The show’s medical director had a brilliant idea to enlist barbershops in African-American neighborhoods to screen customers for hypertension (high blood pressure), which leads to an overwhelming majority of the 140,000 stroke-related deaths a year.

Broadband’s fundamental value doesn’t come from connecting computers to networks; its value comes from connecting people to opportunity, and society to new solutions. When a broadband network is available but a person who wants to use it can’t do so, then the network is less valuable to everyone else who does use it. That's because the he benefits of broadband adoption do not flow only to the people who are new broadband users. Expanding broadband usage can grow the U.S. economy broadly. Expanding broadband usage, furthering civic engagement, can build stronger democratic institutions.

High-Performance Broadband delivers opportunities and strengthens communities. In the Digital Age, open, affordable, robust broadband is the key to all of us reaching for — and achieving — the American Dream. But since the mid-1990s, the U.S. has struggled with a persistent dilemma called the digital divide — the unfortunate reality that for too many people, meaningful connectivity is out of reach.

We saw giant steps backward on communications, media, health, education, environment, voting rights, court appointments, money in politics, equal opportunity, women’s rights, labor rights… the list goes on and on.

There was no "Mr. Watson, come here – I want to see you" moment; instead, 50 years ago in 1969, there was an attempt to login on ARPANET that ended after "lo" because of a system crash. That inauspicious moment led to our connected world of 2019, a time when more than 4 billion people have internet access, and the number of devices connected to internet networks is more than double the global population. But for all the internet's impact, for all those devices, and even though so many have access, too many people remain unconnected.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai proposed the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, or RDOF, a ten-year, $20.4 billion program designed to support broadband deployment in those rural-remote areas left behind by the private market. RDOF will go a long way in bridging the digital divide if it is spent correctly. But there are major issues with RDOF that require attention. My concern is that companies that win this public support will build networks using antiquated or untrusted tech that are only capable of 25/3 service.

On December 10, 2019, Senate Democrats once again demanded, via a call for unanimous consent, an immediate vote on the Save the Internet Act, legislation that reverses the repeal of net neutrality protections.