Fast Company

AI has become a market imperative for leading American businesses. However, current AI knowledge is largely centered around cities. Meanwhile, in rural America, income inequality has never been higher—nor has the digital divide been more deeply felt.

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program differs from previous federal broadband programs because it promised to allocate the funding to individual states and allow them to figure out the best way to distribute the funds. Once states receive their broadband funding, they still have to set up a mechanism to request proposals from internet service providers, grade the proposals that come in, and o

Gigi Sohn is gay. She’s also a highly qualified nominee for the Federal Communications Commission with decades of experience as a public interest advocate working on issues of affordable broadband access, net neutrality, and closing the digital divide.

The digital divide needs to be closed for society to grow, but without the high demand to ensure a return on investment, many smaller, less fortunate communities risk falling behind in a widening gap. The longer larger companies wait to prioritize these regions, the further isolated the people who live there may become from the rapidly digitizing future. Who will take ownership to bring those communities across the digital divide?

Comcast and other cable companies have leaned on a simple strategy to offset the effects of cord-cutting: Charge a steep price on home internet service, and enjoy soaring profits thanks to little or no competition. That strategy may now be in jeopardy. Comcast’s internet subscriber growth was essentially flat last quarter, while Charter lost 21,000 Spectrum internet subscribers.