Jessica Dine

In a time when broadband affordability plays a major role in the digital divide, the Affordable Connectivity Program meets an obvious need. Winding it down comes at the expense of every American relying on the program and of consumers’ trust in government agencies, digital inclusion groups, and Internet service providers.

The rationale for BEAD's low-cost option requirement and NTIA's insistence on checking it upfront is clear: Billions of dollars spent on new networks for services that disproportionately offline populations can’t afford would be billions of dollars wasted. None of this is rate regulation.

While Congress should codify consensus net neutrality principles in statute, until it does, the current Title I framework, combined with targeted initiatives to address specific areas of concern, provides a more prudent path forward.

In their Five-Year BEAD plans, states’ strategies for achieving digital inclusion provide an early indication of their approach to the central goal of BEAD: to get all residents meaningfully, not just nominally, connected.

Policymakers inundated with self-serving arguments for specific spectrum allocation need ways to evaluate which actually advance the public interest. By focusing on the goal of productive spectrum use, one can differentiate between reasoning that would enhance productivity and that which would only advance private interests.

The United States has long been at the forefront of spectrum policy, but it seems more willing to abdicate that post than to build a coherent spectrum strategy that prepares modern-day spectrum policy for the next decade.

Congress created the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) in 2019 to bridge the digital divide. But there’s a problem: ACP’s funding will run out next summer.

The NTIA requires states and territories to develop iterative plans for maximizing broadband access among their residents. Grantees are currently putting out their Five-Year Plans, the first of multiple documents describing their current broadband needs, anticipated concerns, and plans for addressing them.

High rates of broadband adoption benefit all of society, yet those who stand to benefit the most are also least likely to be online. Pushing hard for near-universal connectivity is crucial if we want technology to help bridge, rather than widen, existing divides.

Since households that are still offline are, by definition, unable to be reached through standard methods, flexible, data-driven approaches that target solutions to remaining barriers to connectivity are key to closing the digital divide.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress for the 2022-2023 school year reports a 4 point decline in 13-year-old students’ reading abilities and a 9 point drop in math scores, the largest decline seen in half a century.

Of the agencies that submitted broadband funding data to NTIA, $6.7 billion was paid out for broadband-specific programs in FY 2021, and 76 percent of that went to digital inclusion and adoption.

Watch now for a panel discussion with organizations on the front lines of teaching digital literacy and helping people get connected.

Jessica Dine speaks about the data behind digital navigation services during a panel at the Connect20 Summit.

Join ITIF for a discussion about the current state of broadband in the United States, how to best assess U.S. broadband, what the remaining areas for improvement are, and the best practices for solving them.