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Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Trump halts US effort to attain 'digital equity'
By Carey L Biron WASHINGTON: The public library in Bethel, Alaska is the only place for miles around that provides free internet and computer use, and it was planning to lead the community into a new era of online access. The staff of four had been offering popular one-on-one online assistance and was on the cusp of adding more employees to reach more residents. But after President Donald Trump axed a key federal program in early May, those plans seem doomed. The library was part of a tranche of projects approved in January, and the funding would have allowed additional digital experts and the means to stay open evenings and weekends. "We were beyond excited," said Theresa Quiner, director of Bethel's Kuskokwim Consortium Library. Internet access is limited and very expensive, and there are very low rates of digital literacy, she said. "This is a very important and in-demand service, especially for elderly people and people with visual disabilities," Quiner said. In a May 8 social media post, Trump criticized the law that would have funded the expansion - the Digital Equity Act , an unprecedented $2.75 billion law passed under former President Joe Biden - as an unconstitutional "racist ... giveaway." "No more woke handouts based on race!" he wrote. The move comes amid a broad effort by the Trump administration to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the government. The following day, notices went out saying funding was immediately terminated. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration did not respond to a request for comment. "If you take away the Digital Equity Act funding, far fewer people will be online," said Gigi Sohn , executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband, which represents community-owned networks. "You do your banking online, pay your speeding tickets online, go to school online. So if you don't have robust, affordable access, you're a second-class citizen." EXPANDING CONNECTIONS About 12% of U.S. residents people lived in households without an internet connection in 2023, according to the NTIA, a slight improvement from the previous year. Lower-income households and people of color are considerably more likely to lack connections, the agency said. The Digital Equity Act and the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program to connect all Americans to high-quality broadband service became law in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The efforts were spurred in part by images of children doing schoolwork at home on computers, said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance , which represents more than 2,000 local groups helping people use the internet. "That was the 'aha moment,'" she said. "The number of organizations and local communities doing this work just exploded." BEAD focused on the physical infrastructure needed for connectivity, and the Digital Equity Act targeted softer barriers of digital skills and knowledge. "Every state now has a digital equity plan, which is amazing. Now that's all a waste - the implementation funds are what got stopped," Siefer said. The National Digital Inclusion Alliance had a grant of more than $25 million canceled, part of which had been aimed at planning how to do its type of work without federal funding. BEAD was paused in March for a review and another effort, the Affordable Connectivity Program that subsidized internet service for 23 million people, ended last year when lawmakers failed to extend it. VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES When Sara Nichols worked in county government a decade ago in western North Carolina, she and colleagues estimated as many as 70% of residents lacked internet connections. That finding spurred efforts to overcome technological and affordability constraints, and she has worked since 2018 to help connect more than 17,000 households as an economic development manager with the Land of Sky Regional Council. The Council is an umbrella group of local governments that see broadband as a key economic development driver. In September, the region was devastated by Hurricane Helene, which tore up the broadband infrastructure, and she handed out some 1,200 computers to stricken residents. "We had to work to get them back online," she said. "If you lost your house or job or business, there's a good chance you lost your computer, too." With resources depleted, the Council's partners were thankful to learn in January that they were approved for a $7.7 million Digital Equity Act grant to help veterans, rural households and seniors. Among the plans was retrofitting a bus into a "computer lab on wheels" to travel the rural area, she said. Now such plans are on hold, and Nichols warns neither local governments nor philanthropy can fill the gap. "We feel really vulnerable right now," she said. "Local organizations have lost a lot, and this would have been an opportunity to feel like we could get back on the right track."
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nebraska worries raised about funding for rural broadband expansion
Wider rural broadband deployment remains a long-term goal in Nebraska. (Getty Images) LINCOLN — Nerves are fraying among those seeking to expand broadband service across Nebraska due to funding uncertainty caused by recent actions by the Trump Administration and the Legislature. However, a state official said he isn't worried that the largest program, the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, enacted by the Biden Administration to bring high-speed 'internet for all,' would be impacted. Patrick Haggerty, director of the Nebraska Broadband Office, said Wednesday that his office continues to take applications for the first-round of BEAD grants while it awaits 'new guidance' on the distribution of those funds. Despite the cancellation Friday of a $1.25 billion 'digital equity' training program by the Trump Administration, Haggerty said he has seen 'no indication' that the $405 million in BEAD deployment funds sent to Nebraska is going away. 'Getting universal broadband across Nebraska is not at risk in any way,' he told the Examiner. On Friday, states were informed that the $1.25 billion Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program was being cancelled after President Trump labeled the program 'racist and illegal' and unconstitutional. 'No more woke handouts based on race!' Trump posted on his Truth Social account. States were told that the program used 'impermissible and unconstitutional racial preferences,' according to the news site Broadband Breakfast, which reported that at least one state, Vermont, was weighing whether to legally challenge the cancellation. In a statement last week, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called it 'absolutely insane' that Trump had cancelled a program because it included the word 'equity.' She said she had drafted the equity program to 'close the digital divide' by helping seniors access the internet and providing laptops for 'middle schoolers in rural districts.' The Trump edict eliminates $6.5 million in grants for Nebraska that were intended for nonprofit groups to train and educate people on how to better utilize high-speed internet services and even how to repair computers. The program targeted eight 'covered populations,' including veterans, the elderly, those living in rural areas and members of racial or ethnic minorities. But additional worries have been spawned by the Nebraska Legislature's efforts to close a state budget shortfall. On Tuesday, the Nebraska Public Service Commission ordered that the $20 million-a-year Nebraska Broadband Bridge Act be 'held in abeyance' due to the expectation that the funds, which provide incentives for companies to expand high-speed internet into remote areas, will be diverted by the Legislature to help close the state budget gap. However, BEAD remains the bigger worry among some involved in broadband deployment, that it might be cut back or eliminated as part of Trump Administration efforts to reduce 'fraud, waste and abuse.' There's been speculation online and by the Wall Street Journal that the BEAD program could undergo dramatic changes by shifting up to $20 billion of the grant funds to the StarLink satellite internet service tied to the world's richest man, Elon Musk. Haggerty, the Nebraska broadband czar, said despite the funding uncertainty, 'we're not going to let that slow us down.' The deadline for the first round of grants is Friday. He declined to speculate on when the first grants would be distributed. He added that the state's BEAD funding should be enough to provide broadband to the state's unserved and underserved areas despite the suspension of the Broadband Bridge program. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Hinds County to host meetings on bridging digital divide
HINDS COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) – Hinds County residents are encouraged to attend community meetings about a 'growing communications emergency' that's affecting rural parts of the county. According to Hinds County leaders, the combination of accelerating copper wire theft, the phase-out of traditional landline services, and inadequate broadband infrastructure has left many residents without any reliable means of communication. Mississippi College, Christ Covenant partnership offers college-level math course 'These are not future concerns—we are already seeing people cut off from the outside world,' said Felicia Tripp, Hinds County Broadband Coordinator. 'We must act now to ensure no one in Hinds County is left behind.' (All meetings begin at 6:00 p.m.) Raymond – Monday, May 19, at Bellmont Missionary Baptist Church Utica – Tuesday, May 20, at the Utica Community Center Terry – Thursday, May 22, at the Town of Terry Community Center Edwards – Thursday, May 29, at Ratliff Missionary Baptist Church Officials said the meetings will serve as both public forums and action-planning sessions to address the digital divide and determine how programs like BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) and BEAM (Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi) can be leveraged more effectively to serve Hinds County communities. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
West Virginia broadband switch to satellite internet may cost jobs, hurt consumers
FAIRMONT — The state of West Virginia spent two years of painstaking work settling on fiber optic cable as the best way to expand broadband service in the state. The Morrisey administration may undo that decision after taking a 90-day review period. 'Basically, we're going to throw away two years worth of work getting everything where it was,' Jeff Anderson, president of Communication Workers of America Local 2010 and a telecom engineer, said. 'Governor Morrisey has decided to go along with this complete change in thought process. Hundreds of people had input, went through a painstaking process and likely there will be a significant amount that will be directed to satellite internet, specifically Starlink — Elon Musk — and it's just not a great transition.' The state spent the past two years putting together a proposal for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program. The Biden Administration set BEAD up in 2021 to provide funding for a nationwide broadband infrastructure roll out to rural and underserved areas. The program was built with fiber in mind. The state of West Virginia's proposal was also one of the first three to be approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. In a press release, the Morrisey administration stated its intent to make its proposal more consistent with the Trump administration's broadband goals. The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Anderson said in that two years of work, satellite internet had been eliminated as a possibility because it's not easy to upgrade. A large consideration was that whatever technology the state used, it had to have a service life of at least 50 years. The advantage fiber has — once the lines are laid down — the internet speeds consumers will receive are dictated by the equipment put on either end of the line. It's how telecoms such as Frontier are able to deliver service improvements 14 times faster over a span of three years. Satellites, by contrast, don't have the same flexibility. After five or seven years, Anderson said the satellite system starts to accumulate problems which results in the need to either launch more satellites or purge users from the system. SpaceX charges $1,200 per pound to orbit. A third generation Starlink satellite weighs about 4,188 pounds. A conceivable cost to launch a single additional Starlink satellite to augment the network could cost as much as $5.03 million. Planetside equipment is much easier to access by comparison. More than that, Anderson said capacity constraints present in a satellite system can end up throttling the speeds users get during peak times. Users who rely on telework would also experience suboptimal performance since satellite service bottlenecks upload speed. Telework is upload intensive. Relying on Starlink is like slapping a bandage on the state's broadband problem, Anderson said. Anderson hasn't been the only one to raise these concerns. The Intermountain reported that the Grant County Commission sent a letter to Morrisey arguing fiber is a more affordable solution for Grant County residents, and has better technical support from local internet service providers. 'From our experience, you cannot talk to technical support when asking for help from Starlink,' they wrote in the letter. Bill Bissett, chairman of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, also told the Intermountain that fiber is the best deployment of broadband, with the longest life, best throughput and what's needed for Morrisey's push to turn the state into a hub for data centers. Anderson sits on the West Virginia Workforce Council, and he said they spent a lot of time talking to lawmakers and other stakeholders, as well as the broadband council. They received input from education leaders in higher education, K-12, business and labor, all who provided the input which eventually boiled down to fiber as the best choice. However, the complication fiber advocates face is that after receiving notification the state would receive $1.2 billion for fiber, none of it has materialized yet. 'To be honest, it turned into a very difficult process, a process I don't believe another state in the country was able to negotiate through the process and all the steps,' Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, said. 'I think new administration at the state level, the Morrisey administration, really needs to take a step back and look at how technology has changed in roughly the last 24 months, and what actual dollars are going to be available and try to make some decisions.' Politico reported last September that the requirements for funding in BEAD, specifically those tied to affordability requirements telecommunication companies say is too tight, delayed disbursement of the funds. Oliverio placed blame on the Biden administration for making states jump through too many hoops for the program. National level Republicans turned the program into a culture war issue, blaming Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for delays, but Democrats argued it was reasonable to ensure companies that receive federal money roll the program out in a responsible way that consumers could afford. Although the state had its BEAD proposal approved by NTIA, Sen. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, said none of the funding from the BEAD program has been allocated yet. Politico reported in September the Biden administration expected funding to roll out by 2025. Garcia said that although Starlink may part of the solution for broadband access in West Virginia, fiber, once built, will provide lower rates for consumers. 'If we're just going to allocate money toward having Starlink, at some point, consumers are going to be responsible for that,' Garcia said. 'I think that's going to be an issue for how many West Virginians can afford it.' There's also the Elon Musk shaped elephant to consider. Anderson pointed out how close Musk is to the Trump Administration. The administration has already shown a willingness to bolster one of Musk's companies by holding a Tesla car show on the White House lawn after consumers started boycotting Tesla over Musk's work to dismantle the federal government through DOGE, as well as his two Nazi salutes at inauguration rallies. The Trump Administration is rewriting the BEAD program to enable federal dollars to go toward satellite internet. Charlie Dennie, former director of the state's Broadband Office, told Mountain State Spotlight the state's changes to its proposal would allow Musk to collect more dollars from BEAD. Evan Feinman, who had his contract renewal as head of NTIA rejected by the Trump administration, wrote in a farewell letter that stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so the world's richest man can get richer was another betrayal in a long line of them from Washington. However, the administration argued it's adopting a technology neutral approach. Anderson brought up an additional dimension of how switching to satellite might hurt the state. Jobs. 'All of the [telecom] companies around here locally, in anticipation of getting this funding, we have ramped up our employee base and provided a lot of people with good local jobs,' he said. 'If this funding is slashed or cut completely, a lot of people will be laid off or let go in general. It's going to be a real hit to the economy.' Anderson said they expect a final decision from Morrisey on May 9.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A lagging broadband program faces more delays as Trump plans changes
Workers install fiber optic cables for a school in Harrisburg, Pa. The Trump administration is extending the deadline for states to submit their final proposals for a federal broadband program that's still largely in the planning phase after more than three years. () The Trump administration is extending the deadline for states to submit their final proposals for a federal broadband program, further delaying an effort that's still largely in the planning phase after more than three years. States will have an additional 90 days to submit their final plans for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, known as BEAD, a federal grant program meant to expand broadband access to underserved areas across the country. The extension comes as the Trump administration prepares to make changes to the BEAD program, according to a notice from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The department is currently reviewing the program 'to remove unnecessary rules and mandates, to improve efficiency, take a more technology-neutral approach, cut unnecessary red tape, and streamline deployment,' the notice said. The $42.45 billion program, created under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, began falling behind schedule in part because of inadequate federal mapping of where broadband is most needed and a lengthy challenge process to the maps. As a result, the slow-moving program has some local officials and experts questioning its efficiency. Already-lagging broadband program faces more uncertainty under Trump They anticipate that federal officials might change an affordability requirement, which mandates states include a low-cost service option for low-income households, or the type of technologies given preference under the program. That shift likely would be away from fiber-optic internet toward satellites or other technology. Earlier this month, more than 100 state lawmakers from 28 states sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick requesting that any changes to the BEAD program be optional rather than mandatory. They argued that mandatory changes could undo their BEAD plans and delay broadband deployment by a year or more. The BEAD program originally had required states to submit their final proposals to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration within a year of their initial plan's approval. Citing 'extraordinary circumstances,' however — the new federal review — deadlines for states' final proposals will be moved, according to the notice. NTIA declined to comment for this story. All 50 states have had their initial BEAD proposals approved, unlocking a portion — often 20% — of the money the feds will provide. As of April 14, Delaware, Louisiana and Nevada are the only states to have submitted their final proposals for public comment, according to the NTIA's BEAD Progress Dashboard. Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina and Texas are the only states that have not made any progress beyond having their initial proposal approved, according to the tracker. Stateline reporter Madyson Fitzgerald can be reached at mfitzgerald@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
