Network

Residents in rural Marion County likened Internet service to “a dead turtle” while offering officials feedback on the state of broadband in the region. The input was gathered as part of a six-county listening session.

One option would provide an affordable monthly broadband plan through a local nonprofit, while the second option would come through a proposed agreement with SiFi Networks to build fiber-optic lines across the city.

The Oakland Housing Authority plans to supply 1,117 households in the city's five largest public housing communities with free wireless Internet access by 2024, city officials said.

Plus, a new report looks at what digital inclusion efforts are lacking, a pair of organizations are partnering to promote broadband careers to students and more.

Plus, Oklahoma is the latest state to launch a broadband listening tour, FEMA is teaming with the New Orleans Library for a digital literacy workshop, and more.

The Polis administration has made it a goal to get 99 percent of the state connected to reliable broadband by 2027, but nearly 194,000 households and businesses remain unconnected to the Internet.

A $10 million project to bring broadband to rural areas of Lancaster County is underway, thanks to federal stimulus dollars earmarked by Lancaster County commissioners for the project.

Crawford County commissioners are expected to ratify a contract to expand broadband service to 2,000 homes in the next three years. The county has committed $3 million of its American Rescue Plan Act funds to the project.

The Placer County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved $31 million in funding to bring broadband infrastructure to Sheridan, Newcastle, Loomis, North and South Auburn, Meadow Vista and a neighborhood in Granite Bay.

Plus, philanthropists have launched a new effort to support women in the digital economy, New York City has announced a new Gigabit Center on Staten Island, and more.

The Amazon Web Services unit on Thursday announced two of its own large-language models, one designed to generate text, and another that could help power web search personalization, among other things.

A phone and fax line outage at the Raleigh County Courthouse caused delays for some individuals in custody. At least one man stayed in the county three days after his bail had been paid.

County commissioners have approved a $2.5 million grant application to the Appalachian Regional Commission to help incentivize the buildout of broadband infrastructure in the region.

According to The Center for Digital Equity at Queens University of Charlotte, more than 14 percent of homes in Mecklenburg County, almost 56,000 households, do not have Internet access.

Over the past few months, the city of Birmingham has helped enroll hundreds of residents in the Affordable Connectivity Program, while increasing digital skills expertise and expanding tech device accessibility through its CONNECT99 campaign.

Northumberland and Union counties through SEDA-Council of Governments are seeking $1 million in Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) funds toward the expansion of broadband.

The construction phase of a multiyear project to provide high-speed fiber-optic Internet to more than 16,000 rural residents in Lowndes County has begun. The project will connect around 96 percent of the unserved county census blocks.

A newly released report from the Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute highlights just how disruptive the quickly evolving technology is — and will continue to be — in our daily lives.