Adoption

Up until last year, Nancy Navarro didn’t know how to check her kids’ grades or schedule online appointments. She had Wi-Fi at home so her 15 and 11-year-old kids could do their homework on their school-issued laptops, but she wasn’t online herself very often. But then she noticed that her kids’ school was offering free digital training classes through the local nonprofit EveryoneOn, which aims to connect as many underserved people as possible on the internet.

To connect more Americans, Congress designated a slice of the $1.2 trillion 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Infrastructure Act), as well as a portion of the $350 billion 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) that passed to provide financial relief during the COVID pandemic, to fund projects that would cross this digital divide. All told, the bills provide around $90 billion in funding for connectivity spread across a plethora of initiatives. The question remains: Will this colossal sum be enough to bridge the digital divide?

Using a 2003–2019 dataset on broadband adoption in Algeria, we explore its pattern and the market structure, institutional, and socio-economic factors that influenced its pace, which was considerably delayed due to political and social instability during the decade of the 1990s. We propose an integrative model selection approach that simultaneously searches for the best diffusion model among the Bass, Gompertz, and Logistic diffusion models, as well as relevant explanatory variables.

After spending some time going over my predictions about the future of broadband, I've come to a few conclusions:

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) has been a transformative force, empowering nearly 23 million American households in rural and urban communities with reliable, high-speed, and affordable broadband access. To continue this progress, I implore my colleagues to join me by signing the discharge petition. This will ensure the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act receives the vote it deserves on the floor of the House of Representatives. We cannot turn our back on the progress made in closing the digital divide.

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.

In Massachusetts a consulting program is helping local municipalities navigate digital equity planning. There is no flow of money to municipalities under said program. Instead, the Municipal Digital Equity Planning Program, spearheaded by the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI), pairs towns and cities with consultants to develop strategic plans for digital equity within their communities.

This manual supports States, Territories, and the District of Columbia as they implement their digital equity plans and create sustainable, robust statewide digital equity ecosystems.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has accepted Kentucky’s Digital Equity plan. Using $874,236.00 from the State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program, Kentucky created a plan aimed at addressing disparities in digital access, skills and affordability across the state.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has accepted New York’s Digital Equity plan. Using $2,178,650.00 from the State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program, New York created a plan aimed at addressing disparities in digital access, skills and affordability across the state.