Digital Equity

The Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units and Penn State Extension are gathering data about numbers of students, household devices and Internet access that may later aid the distribution of grant funds.

The legislation will help address increasing costs faced by broadband providers in recent years, and ensure residents in rural parts of the state have access to reliable Internet service, sponsors of the bill have said.

May 6 marked the beginning of a 45-household rural broadband trial in Coconino County, Ariz., where Elon Musk's SpaceX will provide satellite-based Internet. The county first met with the company in 2019.

The money is the first of two rounds of grants to be awarded by the ConnectMaine Authority for high-speed Internet projects. It is part of the $15 million bond that Maine voters approved in July 2020.

Plus, Dayton, Ohio, rolls out a police transparency portal for public info; Howard County, Md., announces a new robust digital equity initiative; and a Florida sheriff’s office deploys tech to find wandering seniors.

Sunnyside School District is partnering with Cox Communications to expand high-speed Internet services to more than 1,000 households in the neighborhood located about 2 miles south of the Tucson airport.

As many as 42 million Americans, most of them in rural or remote areas, have no broadband available, and roughly three times that number can’t afford to hook into the lines running down their streets.

Plus, Virginia launches a statewide public health equity dashboard, data from Yelp shows the impact of car-free streets in communities, Alabama launches new centralized COVID-19 response app, and more.

Instead of setting uniform class schedules under the assumption that all students will learn at the same pace and in the same way, schools might serve kids better by making time the variable and learning the constant.

After a lawsuit alleged the state of New Mexico failed to provide necessary devices and connectivity for students to participate in remote learning, a judge has ordered the state to assess the cost and get it done.

The goal is to provide state and local governments options in financing broadband projects, including the issuance of tax-exempt bonds, public-private partnerships, federal tax credits and bond payment assistance.

Tom Wheeler, former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, explains the public and private interests that will impact how Vice President Kamala Harris brokers a federal broadband infrastructure deal.

School officials have delayed a plan to bring broadband to students in underserved parts of the district, planning to build towers that provide public Wi-Fi access to neighborhoods where students lack service at home.

Wireless Internet hot spots have been activated along Route 40, the historic National Highway that passes through Fayette County, Pa., as more remote parts of Pennsylvania find their own solutions to getting online.

Digital equity advocates, state broadband offices and local government staffers are encouraged by the president’s emphasis on their work, but what do they need at the federal level to fully solve this challenge?

West Virginia Department of Economic Development Secretary Mitch Carmichael unveiled a four-prong approach to spending $138 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to expand broadband Internet in the state.

Internet access touches every aspect of day-to-day life, from applying for jobs or to schools and seeking medical information to doing the required work for school or a career, one professor says.

Plus, an internal federal government innovation program picks 22 ideas to receive phased support funding, a new data warehouse aims to consolidate California’s statewide data on homelessness, and more.