#low-income-connectivity

#low-income-connectivity

"In many major metropolitan areas and small towns, copper theft has escalated to levels that can only be described as systemic," Alcutt writes.

66% of internet users live where political or social sites are blocked, and 78% are in countries where people have been arrested for online posts. New social media regulations have emerged in dozens of countries in the past year alone.

Nearly 90% of the land in the United States is rural and about one in five people, or some 60 million, live throughout it according to the U.S. Census.

The firm's study, 'North American Fiber Broadband Report: FTTH Review and Forecast 2026-2030,' indicates that nearly $200 billion will be spent on fiber over the next five years, highlighting a significant investment in fiber-to-the-home services.

When Guatemalan computer scientist Luis von Ahn first proposed the idea of "games with a purpose" (GWAPs) in 2004, his goal was to harness human brainpower so that computers could learn from it. His idea was simple: Get humans to solve tasks that are trivial to us but difficult for computers back then, like labeling images, transcribing text or classifying data.

"We share The Wonderful Company's vision of ensuring the entire Lost Hills community has access to reliable, high-speed Internet," said Matthew Murphy, CEO of unWired Broadband. "We're proud to play a role in making that vision a reality. Partnerships like this demonstrate how collaboration between the public and private sectors can expand critical infrastructure and help ensure families, students, and local businesses have the connectivity they need to succeed."

"Lehigh Valley residents deserve internet that works as hard as they do. We're not just expanding our network—we're giving customers a superior choice. By signing up now, residents can secure early access to faster speeds, better reliability, and a customer experience built for them."

This law sends a clear message that all New Mexicans deserve access to broadband despite their income. The governor's signature ensures that tens of thousands of New Mexicans will now be able to afford high-speed internet. I am grateful the governor and the Legislature took action on this important bipartisan issue to help low-income families pay for this vital infrastructure.

Eight of the municipal networks studied beat their local provider competitors in median upload speed. Sherwood Broadband - in the town of the same name in Oregon - was the only one to beat its local competitor in median download speed.

The California Public Utilities Commission has approved $3.29 million in grants from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) Broadband Adoption Account that will support 18 digital literacy training projects and three broadband projects across the state. The 21 projects will provide services to about 16,145 Californians.

New Mexico's Low-Income Telecommunications Assistance Program (LITAP) took a key step toward becoming law Friday with its unanimous passage by the state senate. Senate Bill 152 would provide $10 million in funding to help as many as 27,000 low-income residents in need in New Mexico get broadband. The funding will come from the Public Regulation Commission's State Rural Universal Service Fund. That fund has $40 million earmarked for broadband funding.

Wholesale access has been inherently supported by the Broadband Forum's network architecture over the past 20 years, and this project takes the best practices from copper‑based broadband to reshape and evolve them for fiber and cloud networks.

Stefanovic found that Starlink carried data more quickly than connections that started on European cellular networks, despite the space broadband service often requiring more network hops and not using Tier 1 networks. She hypothesized that Starlink's performance can be attributed to the satellite-to-satellite laser connections SpaceX employs, which route traffic across the satellite network so it can reach the most appropriate terrestrial egress point. That laser network, she suggested, should perhaps be considered a new routing layer for the internet.

Whenever I made my initial rounds at a school, a quick peek at its technological resources was often a reliable predictor of its ability to meet students' broad needs. The differences in the quality and volume of computing labs at a school like Lincoln Park High School on Chicago's wealthy north side, where the local population is 75% white, versus Raby High School, located in economically distressed East Garfield Park which is 83% Black, were stark.

despite one person in six now using generative AI (genAI) tools, there exists what it described as a "widening divide." The adoption rate in nations that are situated in the region known as the Global North, a term used for developed nations regardless of their geographic location, is at 24.7% of the working age population, far higher than the 14.1% figure in the Global South, those countries either under development or least developed.

The program is free of charge, with monthly classes and workshops administered by the New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE) and paid for by the U.S. Congress. Building Industry Consulting Service International (BICSI) will provide lab equipment, workbooks, tools, and all teaching equipment. The funding for the three-year broadband workforce program comes from a $1.99 million federal grant New Mexico received from the 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act. Last year, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham asked state agencies in 2024 to address the critical need for infrastructure development in the state, including telecommunications.

FCC OIS detected similar fraud in the system in a 2017 report, which resulted in the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the Lifeline program administrator, beginning a "death check" as part of the enrollment process. However, the FCC allowed three states (California, Texas, and Oregon) to opt out of the death check process. The most recent OIG report specifies that the $5 million in fraud was all in the opt-out state

Spectrum below 1 GHz could significantly boost 4G and 5G coverage in rural areas, according to the report from GSMA Intelligence. Rural areas depend heavily on low-band spectrum because it allows signal to travel further and penetrate better through barriers such as buildings. Rural residents spend twice as much time connected to low bands as their urban and rural counterparts.