Yesterday in an announcement via livestream, the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Hamilton County Schools, and the fiber arm of municipal utility Electric Power Board (EPB) announced a partnership to provide free Internet access and hardware to the 17,700 homes with school children on free or reduced lunch programs in the county. Called HCS EdConnect, the initiative will be the first of its kind in the United States — a success story at using a city-wide network to bridge the digital divide for economically disadvantaged students, and a decisive move to respond to unequal Internet access during a worldwide public health crisis.
Featured
The DIGITAL Reservations Act: A Practical Answer to Tribal Connectivity Today
Yesterday, Congresswoman Deb Haaland and Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the DIGITAL Reservations Act, a bill which ends the current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) practice of selling wireless spectrum rights on the lands of Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations and grants ownership, management, and governance of all spectrum to those groups in perpetuity. The bill also calls for the creation of an FCC fund to support broadband efforts, an advisory team to provide regulatory and technical assistance, and a data collection program to support future connectivity efforts in those communities. It represents a dramatic new approach to addressing the digital divide in Tribal communities, which remain among the least well-connected of all across the United States today.
Two New Reports Detail Connectivity Challenges and the Potential of Community Networks
July has seen the release of two complementary reports which shed light on two of the topics we care about a great deal around these parts: availability and affordability of Internet access, and municipally-enabled networks.
Fighting Monopoly Power: How States and Cities Can Beat Back Corporate Control and Build Thriving Communities
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, of which the Community Broadband Networks initiative is a part, recently released a report, guide, and toolkit all in one. Fighting Monopoly Power: How States and Cities Can Beat Back Corporate Control and Build Thriving Communities brings together the work of all the Institute's initiatives, which ad
Tags
at&t
audio
broadband bits
cable
chattanooga
christopher mitchell
colorado
comcast
competition
consideration
cooperative
dark fiber
digital divide
economic development
fcc
fiber
FTTH
gigabit
legislation
local
massachusetts
media roundup
minnesota
muni
north carolina
open access
partnership
podcast
policy
preemption
press center
rural
school
state laws
stimulus
tennessee
transcript
utility
video
Wireless