The city of Dublin, Ohio has struck a public private partnership with altafiber (formerly known as Cincinnati Bell) to build a new citywide fiber network city leaders hope will finally deliver the kind of affordable, next-generation broadband access Dublin’s 50,000 residents have long been clamoring for.

In 2022 the city issued a request for proposal (RFP) looking for a partner on a citywide network build. At a June 26 meeting, the Dublin city council voted unanimously to select altafiber from a roster of seven potential applicants.

According to the arrangement, construction of the city network is expected to begin in Spring of 2024, with every premise in Dublin passed by a 10 gigabit per second (Gbps) capable network within three years. A select number of undetermined customers are expected to be brought online sometime in the latter part of next year, officials tell ILSR.

A city press release notes that altafiber will invest $35 million in the fiber network, as well as potentially providing the infrastructure necessary to help the city support either public Wi-Fi initiatives or a City Innovation Center. The city says it will pay about $6 million to bury the necessary fiber infrastructure citywide.

As digital equity advocates push Congress to replenish the rapidly diminishing funds that support the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a recently published report should help bolster the case that the program – which subsidizes the cost of monthly Internet service for income-eligible households – won’t just help more Americans get broadband access, it can also incent Internet service providers (ISPs) to make infrastructure investments in unserved and underserved areas.

The report, titled "Closing the Digital Divide Benefits Everyone, Not Just the Disconnected" – published by Common Sense and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) – emphasizes the benefits of universal Internet access across education, health care, government services, and employment. It makes the case that universal connectivity would allow institutions to “integrate Internet-based technologies into their services, improving them for the benefit of all.”

Most notably, the report advocates for increased ACP enrollment, arguing that in addition to providing low-income households some short-term relief from pricey Internet bills, the program can provide an economic incentive for ISPs to invest in unserved and underserved communities by increasing the return on investment (ROI) in areas that have previously been considered unprofitable.

The Affordable Connectivity Program has been considered by some to be a “coupon” solution to the broadband affordability problem, and ILSR has long believed that while the ACP is critical to ensuring low-income customers can afford Internet access right now, more structural solutions are needed to make connectivity affordable to everyone over the long term.

During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, organizations that had not previously focused on digital inclusion work scrambled to help their communities stay connected as school, healthcare, and other services transitioned online.

OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates (OCA) was one of these organizations, and in advocating for the digital access needs of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs), found that there was not much data documenting connectivity gaps within these communities. The "model minority" myth, which characterizes AANHPIs as one monolithic group, enjoying “uniform high achievement and high income, [and] relatively untouched by racial and ethnic discrimination,” obscures the digital access gaps in many AANHPI communities and has likely contributed to the dearth of research investigating AANHPI connectivity needs.

OCA Broadband Access and Digital Equity Fellow Yen Jeong told ILSR how difficult it has been to challenge the model minority myth: “Every time we say that our communities need more [digital access] support, everyone says that Asian Americans are digitally already very fluent,” Jeong said, adding that the assumption that many AANHPIs have tech jobs makes it especially difficult for OCA to galvanize support for the AANHPI-focused digital inclusion work.

"It’s been really tough to challenge the narrative."  

The assumption that all AANHPIs are connected to the Internet, along with the lack of evidence to break down this assumption, impeded OCA’s efforts to rally support for AANHPIs’ digital access needs, made urgent by the pandemic. Motivated to get all AANHPIs online, OCA launched a major data collection campaign to challenge the model minority narrative and build the foundation for its newest area of advocacy – technology, workforce, and digital inclusion.  

OCA’s Entry to Digital Inclusion

Two months after President Biden’s belated and long-stalled Federal Communications Commission (FCC) nominee withdrew her nomination after a year-long attack campaign against her, today at the Broadband Communities Summit in Houston, Texas, Gigi Sohn announced her next move: Sohn will serve as the first Executive Director for the American Association of Public Broadband (AAPB).

A non-profit organization formed by a group of municipal officials, AAPB’s mission is to advance advocacy efforts on behalf of publicly-owned, locally-controlled broadband networks. Since the organization first announced its formation at the Broadband Communities Summit in May of 2022, it has been working to educate federal and state policymakers who “have turned to the telecom lobby for help and are receiving biased guidance” on the community broadband networks approach, just as $42.5 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is set to flow to state governments to expand high-speed Internet access this summer.

During a keynote luncheon at the summit, Sohn was joined by AAPB founding board members Bob Knight and Kimberly McKinley on the main stage for a candid discussion in which she reflected on the state of Internet access in the U.S. and her experience that led to her to withdraw her nomination to the FCC. Near the end of the luncheon she announced her new role with AAPB, which was greeted by a standing ovation from the hundreds of attendees in the audience.

Freedom to Choose Community Broadband Future

The announcement was followed by a press briefing where she elaborated on her vision for AAPB.

“I will be the first Executive Director of the American Association of Public Broadband. Until now, there has not been a membership-based advocacy organization that works to ensure that public broadband can grow unimpeded by anti-competitive barriers. That’s despite the success of public broadband to help places like Chattanooga and the Massachusetts Berkshires transform from sleepy hamlets to vibrant centers of economic opportunity, education and culture,” she said at the press briefing.

On the latest episode of our Building For Digital Equity podcast, we are joined by Aneta Lee, a FUSE Corps Fellow working with the city of Birmingham, Alabama to strategize and conceptualize around the city’s role in closing the digital divide in Magic City.

Aneta shares with us how she came to work with the city and some of the initiatives that have been launched to advance digital equity. She also speaks about the city’s work with Education SuperHighway on an Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) outreach campaign known as Connect 99.

Lastly, Aneta talks about her willingness to work with other communities to help craft their digital equity plans.

This show is 15 minutes long and can be played on this page or using the podcast app of your choice with this feed.

Listen to other episodes here or see other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

The South Carolina Broadband Office (SCBBO) has announced 56 newly funded projects through its new broadband grant program, which state leaders say will dramatically improve resident access to affordable, next-generation broadband networks statewide.

South Carolina historically hasn’t been a hotbed of community broadband deployment, and is one of 17 states that have passed restrictions on municipal network creation, funding, and expansion. Still, there are numerous electric cooperatives in the state busy creatively bridging the digital divide that stand to benefit from an historic infusion of new grant funding.

The state’s latest round of funding comes courtesy of South Carolina’s American Rescue Plan Act, State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Priority 1.0 program (ARPA SLFRF 1.0).  

All told, the SCBBO says it has doled out $129.6 million in broadband grand awards to 15 different Internet service providers (ISPs) across 34 different South Carolina counties.

“We are incredibly excited about this next chapter of broadband expansion in South Carolina,” Jim Stritzinger, Director of the SC Broadband Office said in a statement.  “Across the state, most have probably noticed the ISP road crews working diligently to provide high-speed internet access to our homes and businesses. This set of investments will provide a substantial boost to the work that is already underway.”

According to state officials, All ARPA SLFRF 1.0 grants are required to be completed by December 31, 2024. Once completed, the state says these grants will have funded 5,000 additional miles of fiber statewide as well as last mile access to at least 38,995 locations.

City officials in Syracuse, New York have formally approved a new project to provide heavily discounted wireless broadband to low-income city residents. The plan is being made possible courtesy of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), $123 million of which has been doled out to Syracuse city leaders for various urban improvement efforts.

After issuing a request for proposals (RFP) last year, Syracuse officials say they’ve selected Community Broadband Networks FLX to help build the fledgling, city-owned network. City officials say the finished project, which is estimated to be completed by the end of the summer, should cover 10 Census tracts in the south, southwest and west sides of the city for a total project cost of somewhere around $3.5 million.

Once completed, the network should provide wireless broadband service at speeds up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to roughly 2,500 Syracuse residents currently living below the poverty line in a city of 146,000.

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On Monday, March 27 the Syracuse Common Council voted to formally approve the project, which will utilize fixed wireless technology in a bid to reduce overall project costs. Participating users will be given a free router and modem, which in turn will connect to city transmitters affixed to local city-owned buildings and utility poles.

Our new podcast series – Building for Digital Equity – debuts today with an insightful conversation with Margaret “Meg” Kaufer, President of the STEM Alliance in Westchester County, New York.

Meg shares lessons about what they have learned in delivering low-cost Internet access to people in Yonkers and beyond. She also discusses how they recently retired their wireless CBRS network and have embraced signing households up for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

Our regular followers may recall her appearance on episode 500 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast where she discussed their foray into CBRS. On the B4DE podcast, she not only updates us on those efforts, but also explains how they have developed a replicable strategy for signing people up for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), helping eligible participants navigate the cumbersome paperwork requirements.

The B4DE podcast features short interviews with our team, talking to those doing behind-the-scenes digital inclusion work through local efforts aimed at giving everyone, everywhere, the opportunity to participate fully in the digital world.

You can listen to the podcast below or put this feed into your podcast app. And don’t forget to visit our B4DE podcast page for this and future episodes. Please leave us a rating if you like it!

Header image of podcast microphone courtesy of Maciej Korsan, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)
Public Domain Dedication

Since the launch of the Affordable Connectivity Program last January, millions of households have benefitted from the $30/month connection subsidy to help pay for their broadband bills. The program serves as a necessary bridge in a failed marketplace, dominated nationally by a small number of regional monopolies driven by shareholders to charge the highest price possible. 

Along the way, ILSR and a host of other research and advocacy organizations have been digging into the American Connectivity Program (ACP) data in order to better understand how the program has operated over the last year, and how we can work collectively to improve education and outreach efforts and make sure as many households as possible will benefit. From this work we created an ACP Dashboard to collect and visualize useful data to support the critical work of digital navigators, nonprofits, and local governments.

Explore the Affordable Connectivity Program here, and read more about why we created it. 

Reckognizing the Gap

In addition to tracking how much of the $15.5 billion fund ($1.3 billion was carried over from the Emergency Broadband Benefit and $14.2 billion was allocated for the ACP] is left and predicting when it’ll run out (April 2026 at current rates), keeping an eye on state- and zip-code level use and enrollment, and following what types of connections households are using the benefit to pay for, an important part of this work has been tracking data across major metropolitan areas across the country.  

As we continue to analyze the data and refine our tools to support work at the local level, we have found that the percentage of households in major metro areas (and likely elsewhere) that are actually using the program is smaller than the percentage of households enrolled in the program.