- Pew Details Challenges, Opportunities With Broadband and Affordable Housing
- New York Public Library Wins Innovation Award
- Nevada Latest State to Launch High-Speed Internet Tour
- Austin Opens Digital Inclusion Grants Program
- Boulder, Colo., Issues RFI for Community Broadband
- Can ChatGPT Find Free Wi-Fi in Baltimore?
PEW DETAILS CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES WITH BROADBAND AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING
A brief released earlier this week by The Pew Charitable Trusts outlines research regarding strategies to increase broadband access and adoption in federally subsidized multifamily housing.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a guidebook to help entities navigate federal programs, specifically aiming to help Public Housing Agencies and HUD stakeholders understand their role in this work.
The research is primarily focused on housing programs subsidized by HUD, but also addressed other programs like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Housing Service.
The brief explores challenges in affordable housing broadband access, including a legacy of housing discrimination and lack of affordability. Digital skills training, lack of trust, and building age can also be barriers to access.
In addition, the brief highlights federal programs that aim to address connectivity issues, like HUD’s ConnectHomeUSA program, as well as the Affordable Connectivity Program.
The brief outlines considerations for policymakers, such as the need to address all three pillars of digital equity — access to services and devices, affordability, and digital skills — as well as understanding that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
A new program in New York City, Big Apple Connect, takes a related approach to bridging the digital divide, investing in providing over 200 New York City Housing Authority developments with Internet access. As the city’s Chief Technology Officer Matt Fraser told Government Technology, public housing residents are a historically underserved population with an urgent need for a necessary service — “akin to utilities such as hot water and heat.”
In all, the Pew brief concludes that increased policymaker attention and federal funding create an opportunity to connect residents of these housing units. However, for the desired impact to be achieved, barriers must be addressed and collaboration will likely be necessary, in what will need to be “a continued commitment from leaders at all levels of government.” (Julia Edinger)
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY WINS INNOVATION AWARD
The New York Public Library (NYPL) vice president of information technology, Garfield Swaby, has been awarded the NYC Hayes Innovation Prize by the Adams administration for his work to address the digital divide. The recognition includes a $1,000 prize, which Swaby said he will use to take his team out to dinner and make a donation to the NYPL.
Swaby’s work in this space includes the creation of a pilot program to bring free Internet access to patrons’ homes using Citizens Broadband Radio Service technology to extend NYPL’s Wi-Fi signal reach to participating neighborhoods.
This pilot recently wrapped its first phase, and the team found it to be a model with significant potential. The second phase will explore how to expand connectivity to even more New Yorkers, as well as working with private-sector vendors to mature technologies that meet the unique needs of the low-income communities that libraries and school districts serve. (Julia Edinger)
NEVADA LATEST STATE TO LAUNCH HIGH-SPEED INTERNET TOUR
Nevada is the latest state to go on a high-speed Internet tour, the governor’s office has announced.
Gov. Joe Lombardo and the Governor’s Office of Science, Innovation and Technology (OSIT) are teaming on the effort, calling it the High Speed Nevada Connectivity Outreach and Engagement Tour. The tour started this week and is slated to run all throughout April, with OSIT staff members visiting every county in the state. The goal is to collect input from residents and community stakeholders about their broadband and digital equity needs.
This sort of high-speed Internet listening tour is not just limited to Nevada. No, it’s sweeping the nation like a popular band. What’s happening is that the federal government has made a historic amount of money available for broadband and digital equity. In fact, all 50 states have applied for and received federal grants to create plans related to this. Part of the requirement is also a 30-day comment period for residents.
And as experts in the digital equity space frequently point out, the digital divide is a challenge with solutions that are hyper-specific to individual communities, making this sort of feedback not only important but absolutely vital.
More information about Nevada’s tour — including a schedule — can be found here. (Zack Quaintance)
AUSTIN OPENS DIGITAL INCLUSION GRANTS PROGRAM
Austin, Texas, has opened a new digital inclusion mini-grant tract called the Grant for Technologies Opportunities Program (GTOPs), officials there announced.
The GTOPs, which was created to support small nonprofits in the digital inclusion space, will award as much as $50,000 a year as individual grants between $5,000 and $10,000. Applications for these grants are open now and will remain open through May 14. The aim is to support small Austin-based nonprofits doing this work, specifically those that have revenues totaling less than $1 million a year.
The mini grant tract is one of four being offered as part of GTOPs, with the other three being GTOPs Core, which is awards between $10,000 and $35,000 per group; GTOPs Capacity, which gives nonprofits between $150 and $2,500 each to help build funding infrastructure and more; and GTOPs Connect, which is aimed at supporting work around the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).
Interested parties can find more info via the GTOPs Mini website. (Zack Quaintance)
BOULDER, COLO., ISSUES RFI FOR COMMUNITY BROADBAND
Boulder, Colo., has issued a new request for information (RFI) to gauge interest there in forming a public-private partnership with the city in order to make its municipal Internet provider available to all homes and businesses, the city has announced.
The city noted that it hopes to identify at least one potential partner that can “enable or directly provide high-capacity broadband services over fiber to end users within the city.” This new RFI builds on work that was started in 2018, when the Boulder City Council approved funding and issued directions for a citywide fiber backbone that would connect key sites and the majority of Boulder’s traffic signals. Since then, the network has expanded, and now a 65-mile fiber backbone is expected be completed in 2023.
Responses to the RFI — which can be read in full here — are due by May 19. (Zack Quaintance)
CAN CHATGPT FIND FREE WI-FI IN BALTIMORE?
ChatGPT may be able to help people understand and access free Wi-Fi in their cities, according to findings of a unique experiment conducted by a technology reporter for Technical.ly.
The reporter posed the question, “Can you help me find free Wi-Fi access in Baltimore City?” In short, the answer was “yes.” ChatGPT offered locations of the city’s free Wi-Fi hot spots, public libraries, coffee shops, restaurants and public parks.
Mirroring this experiment, I tested whether ChatGPT could answer the question for my own city — Costa Mesa, Calif. — which is notably smaller than Baltimore. The resulting list included the names of specific libraries, parks, a shopping center and coffee shops, as well as information as to which areas of the city enabled access to the city’s free Wi-Fi.
In my hometown in Ohio, which has a population under 30,000 people, results were similarly helpful. As the discussion on how to regulate these tools continues, it is notable that they show promise in helping individuals find Wi-Fi — however, one would need Internet and device access to pose the initial question. (Julia Edinger)
