Community Broadband Media Roundup - March 16

Maine

Somerville voters agree to seek grants to create municipal broadband network by Keith Edwards, Central Maine

 

Massachusetts 

OpenCape Offers Clients 100% Free Bandwidth Upgrades To Combat COVID-19, OpenCape

 

New Hampshire 

Westmoreland approves broadband project at town meeting by Olivia Belanger, Sentinel Source

 

New York

Two states divert to telework. Are others ready? By Andrew Westrope, GovTech

 

Ohio 

How Cleveland is bridging both digital and racial divides by Lara Fishbane and Adie Tomer, Brookings 

  

Wisconsin 

Wisconsin Offers Tax Breaks for Rural Broadband Investments by Carl Weinschenk, telecompetitor 

 

General 

 

The National Broadband Plan at 10: A decade of lessons on increasing home broadband adoption, Benton Institute

 

What America can do to strengthen its communications infrastructure by Lindsay Stern, Public Knowledge 

 

USDA Extends ReConnect Application Deadline to March 31, USDA

 

Response to New Coronavirus

 

Coronavirus exposes Internet inequality among U.S. students as schools close their doors by Tony Romm, Washington Post 

 

As COVID-19 pushes classes online, some students are caught in the broadband gap by Makena Kelly, The Verge

All of these examples highlight a problem the Federal Communications Commission and lawmakers have struggled to solve for years — the “homework gap.” It’s a term that refers to the barriers students face at school when they don’t have access to a high-speed internet connection at home. In times of emergency, those online barriers become more apparent, especially when schools haven’t planned for them in advance before moving classes online.

 

Broadband providers brace for coronavirus stress test by Margaret Harding McGill, Axios

 

Doctors and patients turn to telemedicine in the coronavirus outbreak by Reed Abelson, New York Times

 

Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon Should Suspend Data Caps Because of Coronavirus by Karl Bode, VICE

Experts have repeatedly warned that broadband usage caps and overage fees are little more than a glorified price hike, employed by regional telecom monopolies to drive up costs. In the wake of an unprecedented quarantine and containment effort, experts say that eliminating these costly restrictions is the very least the industry and federal leaders can do.

U.S. providers offer free Wi-Fi for 60 days, ABC news