Latest news with #internetAccess
BBC News
4 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
How Surrey Hills residents installed their own broadband cables
High-speed internet and information at our fingertips is now commonplace, but there are still areas of England where people struggle to of those places was the Surrey Hills, until in 2018 a group of locals chose to take action and began researching how to lay their own fibre optic Townsend, from Cranleigh, said major broadband providers would not supply the area because so few people lived there, so he founded Broadband for Surrey Hills (B4SH).The group soon began laying underground cabling in fields and has now connected more than 600 properties to superfast fibre optic broadband. The idea was first used by Barry Forde, from Broadband for Rural North, who was laying fibre optic cable to thousands of homes without internet in Cumbria. Mr Forde gave his designs to Mr Townsend for free to be used in Surrey."The major companies just don't want to know, it's just in the 'too hard' category'," said Mr Townsend. "Our original target was 600 connections and we've met that, but quite honestly we need to do more."The next few years are going to be very exciting. We've no aspiration to become a national network but the Surrey Hills is quite a big place."During the pandemic, the benefits of the B4SH project were Tim Heaney, the rector of United Benefice of Shere, Albury and Chilworth, said it meant he could keep running church services."Lockdown turned most of us into broadcasters," he said."Big churches were already videoing and broadcasting services, but certainly very few of us in rural areas were."Rev Heaney explained that he would record a service the day before it was needed as it would take all night to upload to YouTube - but with the new internet connection from B4SH he was able to stream it as it happened."I was amazed when I moved here, an hour from London, that the phone signal is appalling and the 4G is terrible, as was the broadband," he comes as the Digital Poverty Alliance launches a campaign on Tuesday to tackle "digital poverty and exclusion".Elizabeth Anderson, CEO of the alliance, said: "Digital poverty in the UK is solvable, but only if we act decisively, and together."Ending digital poverty means making bold, practical commitments, and delivering on them."From investing in local solutions to holding sectors accountable for delivery, this plan is a call to all of us – government, industry, and communities – to do more, and do it now."
The Independent
25-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
The Digital Equity Act tried to close the digital divide. Trump calls it racist and acts to end it
One program distributes laptops in rural Iowa. Another helped people get back online after Hurricane Helene washed away computers and phones in western North Carolina. Programs in Oregon and rural Alabama teach older people, including some who have never touched a computer, how to navigate in an increasingly digital world. It all came crashing down this month when President Donald Trump — on his own digital platform, Truth Social — announced his intention to end the Digital Equity Act, a federal grant program meant to help bridge the digital divide. He branded it as 'RACIST and ILLEGAL' and said it amounts to 'woke handouts based on race.' He said it was an 'ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway," though the program was actually funded with $2.75 billion. The name seemed innocuous enough when the program was approved by Congress in 2021 as part of a $65 billion investment meant to bring internet access to every home and business in the United States. The broadband program itself was a key component of the $1 trillion infrastructure law pushed through by the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden. The Digital Equity Act was intended to fill gaps and cover unmet needs that surfaced during the massive broadband rollout. It gave states and tribes flexibility to deliver high-speed internet access to families that could not afford it, computers to kids who did not have them, telehealth access to older adults in rural areas, and training and job skills to veterans. Whether Trump has the legal authority to end the program remains unknown. But for now the Republican administration can simply stop spending the money. 'I just felt my heart break for what we were finally, finally in this country, going to address, the digital divide," said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, a nonprofit that was awarded — but has not received — a $25.7 million grant to work with groups across the country to help provide access to technology. 'The digital divide is not just physical access to the internet, it is being able to use that to do what you need to do.' The word 'equity' While the name of the program likely got it targeted — the Trump administration has been aggressively scrubbing the government of programs that promote diversity, equity or inclusion — the Digital Equity Act was supposed to be broader in scope. Though Trump called it racist, the words 'race' or 'racial' appear just twice in the law's text: once, alongside 'color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability,' in a passage stating that no groups should be excluded from funding, and later, in a list of covered populations, along with older adults, veterans, people with disabilities, English learners, people with low literacy levels and rural Americans. 'Digital Equity passed with overwhelming bipartisan support,' said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the act's chief proponent, in a statement. 'And that's because my Republican colleagues have heard the same stories as I have — like kids in rural communities forced to drive to McDonalds parking lots for Wi-Fi to do their homework. "It is insane — absolutely nuts — that Trump is blocking resources to help make sure kids in rural school districts can get hot spots or laptops, all because he doesn't like the word equity!' The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which administers the program, declined to comment. It's not entirely clear how much of the $2.75 billion has been awarded, though last March the NTIA announced the allocation of $811 million to states, territories and tribes. 'More confident' On a recent morning in Portland, Oregon, Brandon Dorn was among those taking a keyboard basics class offered by Free Geek, a nonprofit that provides free courses to help people learn to use computers. The class was offered at a low-income housing building to make it accessible for residents. Dorn and the others were given laptops and shown the different functions of keys: control, shift and caps lock, how to copy and paste. They played a typing game that taught finger and key placement on a color-coded keyboard. Dorn, 63, said the classes helped because 'in this day and age, everything has to go through the computer.' He said it helped him feel more confident and less dependent on his children or grandchildren to do things such as making appointments online. 'Folks my age, we didn't get this luxury because we were too busy working, raising the family,' he said. 'So this is a great way to help us help ourselves.' Juan Muro, Free Geek's executive director, said participants get the tools and skills they need to access things like online banking, job applications, online education programs and telehealth. He said Trump's move to end funding has put nonprofits such as Free Geek in a precarious position, forcing them to make up the difference through their own fundraising and 'beg for money to just provide individuals with essential stuff." Sara Nichols works for the Land of Sky Regional Council, a multicounty planning and development organization in western North Carolina. On the Friday before Trump's inauguration in January, the organization received notice that it was approved for a grant. But like other groups The Associated Press contacted, it has not seen any money. Land of Sky had spent a lot of resources helping people recover from last year's storms. The award notice, Nichols said, came as 'incredible news.' 'But between this and the state losing, getting their letters terminated, we feel just like stuck. What are we going to do? How are we going to move forward? How are we going to let our communities continue to fall behind?' Filling unmet needs More than one-fifth of Americans do not have broadband internet access at home, according to the Pew Research Center. In rural communities, the number jumps to 27 percent. Beyond giving people access to technology and fast internet, many programs funded by the Digital Equity Act sought to provide 'digital navigators' — human helpers to guide people new to the online world. 'In the United States we do not have a consistent source of funding to help individuals get online, understand how to be safe online and how to use that technology to accomplish all the things that are required now as part of life that are online,' said Siefer of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. This includes everything from providing families with internet hot spots so they can get online at home to helping seniors avoid online scams. 'Health, workforce, education, jobs, everything, right?' Siefer said. 'This law was going to be the start for the U.S. to figure out this issue. It's a new issue in the big scheme of things, because now technology is no longer a nice-to-have. You have to have the internet and you have to know how to use the technology just to survive, let alone to thrive today.' Siefer said the word 'equity' in the name probably prompted Trump to target the program for elimination. 'But it means that he didn't actually look at what this program does," she said. "Because who doesn't want grandma to be safe online? Who doesn't want a veteran to be able to talk to their doctor rather than get in a car and drive two hours? Who doesn't want students to be able to do their homework?' —- Ortutay reported from San Francisco.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Digital Equity Act tried to close the digital divide. Trump calls it racist and acts to end it
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — One program distributes laptops in rural Iowa. Another helped people get back online after Hurricane Helene washed away computers and phones in western North Carolina. Programs in Oregon and rural Alabama teach older people, including some who have never touched a computer, how to navigate in an increasingly digital world. It all came crashing down this month when President Donald Trump — on his own digital platform, Truth Social — announced his intention to end the Digital Equity Act, a federal grant program meant to help bridge the digital divide. He branded it as 'RACIST and ILLEGAL' and said it amounts to 'woke handouts based on race.' He said it was an 'ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway," though the program was actually funded with $2.75 billion. The name seemed innocuous enough when the program was approved by Congress in 2021 as part of a $65 billion investment meant to bring internet access to every home and business in the United States. The broadband program itself was a key component of the $1 trillion infrastructure law pushed through by the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden. The Digital Equity Act was intended to fill gaps and cover unmet needs that surfaced during the massive broadband rollout. It gave states and tribes flexibility to deliver high-speed internet access to families that could not afford it, computers to kids who did not have them, telehealth access to older adults in rural areas, and training and job skills to veterans. Whether Trump has the legal authority to end the program remains unknown. But for now the Republican administration can simply stop spending the money. 'I just felt my heart break for what we were finally, finally in this country, going to address, the digital divide," said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, a nonprofit that was awarded — but has not received — a $25.7 million grant to work with groups across the country to help provide access to technology. 'The digital divide is not just physical access to the internet, it is being able to use that to do what you need to do.' The word 'equity' While the name of the program likely got it targeted — the Trump administration has been aggressively scrubbing the government of programs that promote diversity, equity or inclusion — the Digital Equity Act was supposed to be broader in scope. Though Trump called it racist, the words 'race' or 'racial' appear just twice in the law's text: once, alongside 'color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability,' in a passage stating that no groups should be excluded from funding, and later, in a list of covered populations, along with older adults, veterans, people with disabilities, English learners, people with low literacy levels and rural Americans. 'Digital Equity passed with overwhelming bipartisan support,' said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the act's chief proponent, in a statement. 'And that's because my Republican colleagues have heard the same stories as I have — like kids in rural communities forced to drive to McDonalds parking lots for Wi-Fi to do their homework. "It is insane — absolutely nuts — that Trump is blocking resources to help make sure kids in rural school districts can get hot spots or laptops, all because he doesn't like the word equity!' The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which administers the program, declined to comment. It's not entirely clear how much of the $2.75 billion has been awarded, though last March the NTIA announced the allocation of $811 million to states, territories and tribes. 'More confident' On a recent morning in Portland, Oregon, Brandon Dorn was among those taking a keyboard basics class offered by Free Geek, a nonprofit that provides free courses to help people learn to use computers. The class was offered at a low-income housing building to make it accessible for residents. Dorn and the others were given laptops and shown the different functions of keys: control, shift and caps lock, how to copy and paste. They played a typing game that taught finger and key placement on a color-coded keyboard. Dorn, 63, said the classes helped because 'in this day and age, everything has to go through the computer.' He said it helped him feel more confident and less dependent on his children or grandchildren to do things such as making appointments online. 'Folks my age, we didn't get this luxury because we were too busy working, raising the family,' he said. 'So this is a great way to help us help ourselves.' Juan Muro, Free Geek's executive director, said participants get the tools and skills they need to access things like online banking, job applications, online education programs and telehealth. He said Trump's move to end funding has put nonprofits such as Free Geek in a precarious position, forcing them to make up the difference through their own fundraising and 'beg for money to just provide individuals with essential stuff." Sara Nichols works for the Land of Sky Regional Council, a multicounty planning and development organization in western North Carolina. On the Friday before Trump's inauguration in January, the organization received notice that it was approved for a grant. But like other groups The Associated Press contacted, it has not seen any money. Land of Sky had spent a lot of resources helping people recover from last year's storms. The award notice, Nichols said, came as 'incredible news.' 'But between this and the state losing, getting their letters terminated, we feel just like stuck. What are we going to do? How are we going to move forward? How are we going to let our communities continue to fall behind?' Filling unmet needs More than one-fifth of Americans do not have broadband internet access at home, according to the Pew Research Center. In rural communities, the number jumps to 27 percent. Beyond giving people access to technology and fast internet, many programs funded by the Digital Equity Act sought to provide 'digital navigators' — human helpers to guide people new to the online world. 'In the United States we do not have a consistent source of funding to help individuals get online, understand how to be safe online and how to use that technology to accomplish all the things that are required now as part of life that are online,' said Siefer of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. This includes everything from providing families with internet hot spots so they can get online at home to helping seniors avoid online scams. 'Health, workforce, education, jobs, everything, right?' Siefer said. 'This law was going to be the start for the U.S. to figure out this issue. It's a new issue in the big scheme of things, because now technology is no longer a nice-to-have. You have to have the internet and you have to know how to use the technology just to survive, let alone to thrive today.' Siefer said the word 'equity' in the name probably prompted Trump to target the program for elimination. 'But it means that he didn't actually look at what this program does," she said. "Because who doesn't want grandma to be safe online? Who doesn't want a veteran to be able to talk to their doctor rather than get in a car and drive two hours? Who doesn't want students to be able to do their homework?' —- Ortutay reported from San Francisco. Barbara Ortutay And Claire Rush, The Associated Press Sign in to access your portfolio
Associated Press
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
The Digital Equity Act tried to close the digital divide. Trump calls it racist and acts to end it
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — One program distributes laptops in rural Iowa. Another helped people get back online after Hurricane Helene washed away computers and phones in western North Carolina. Programs in Oregon and rural Alabama teach older people, including some who have never touched a computer, how to navigate in an increasingly digital world. It all came crashing down this month when President Donald Trump — on his own digital platform, Truth Social — announced his intention to end the Digital Equity Act, a federal grant program meant to help bridge the digital divide. He branded it as 'RACIST and ILLEGAL' and said it amounts to 'woke handouts based on race.' He said it was an 'ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway,' though the program was actually funded with $2.75 billion. The name seemed innocuous enough when the program was approved by Congress in 2021 as part of a $65 billion investment meant to bring internet access to every home and business in the United States. The broadband program itself was a key component of the $1 trillion infrastructure law pushed through by the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden. The Digital Equity Act was intended to fill gaps and cover unmet needs that surfaced during the massive broadband rollout. It gave states and tribes flexibility to deliver high-speed internet access to families that could not afford it, computers to kids who did not have them, telehealth access to older adults in rural areas, and training and job skills to veterans. Whether Trump has the legal authority to end the program remains unknown. But for now the Republican administration can simply stop spending the money. 'I just felt my heart break for what we were finally, finally in this country, going to address, the digital divide,' said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, a nonprofit that was awarded — but has not received — a $25.7 million grant to work with groups across the country to help provide access to technology. 'The digital divide is not just physical access to the internet, it is being able to use that to do what you need to do.' The word 'equity' While the name of the program likely got it targeted — the Trump administration has been aggressively scrubbing the government of programs that promote diversity, equity or inclusion — the Digital Equity Act was supposed to be broader in scope. Though Trump called it racist, the words 'race' or 'racial' appear just twice in the law's text: once, alongside 'color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability,' in a passage stating that no groups should be excluded from funding, and later, in a list of covered populations, along with older adults, veterans, people with disabilities, English learners, people with low literacy levels and rural Americans. 'Digital Equity passed with overwhelming bipartisan support,' said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the act's chief proponent, in a statement. 'And that's because my Republican colleagues have heard the same stories as I have — like kids in rural communities forced to drive to McDonalds parking lots for Wi-Fi to do their homework. 'It is insane — absolutely nuts — that Trump is blocking resources to help make sure kids in rural school districts can get hot spots or laptops, all because he doesn't like the word equity!' The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which administers the program, declined to comment. It's not entirely clear how much of the $2.75 billion has been awarded, though last March the NTIA announced the allocation of $811 million to states, territories and tribes. 'More confident' On a recent morning in Portland, Oregon, Brandon Dorn was among those taking a keyboard basics class offered by Free Geek, a nonprofit that provides free courses to help people learn to use computers. The class was offered at a low-income housing building to make it accessible for residents. Dorn and the others were given laptops and shown the different functions of keys: control, shift and caps lock, how to copy and paste. They played a typing game that taught finger and key placement on a color-coded keyboard. Dorn, 63, said the classes helped because 'in this day and age, everything has to go through the computer.' He said it helped him feel more confident and less dependent on his children or grandchildren to do things such as making appointments online. 'Folks my age, we didn't get this luxury because we were too busy working, raising the family,' he said. 'So this is a great way to help us help ourselves.' Juan Muro, Free Geek's executive director, said participants get the tools and skills they need to access things like online banking, job applications, online education programs and telehealth. He said Trump's move to end funding has put nonprofits such as Free Geek in a precarious position, forcing them to make up the difference through their own fundraising and 'beg for money to just provide individuals with essential stuff.' Sara Nichols works for the Land of Sky Regional Council, a multicounty planning and development organization in western North Carolina. On the Friday before Trump's inauguration in January, the organization received notice that it was approved for a grant. But like other groups The Associated Press contacted, it has not seen any money. Land of Sky had spent a lot of resources helping people recover from last year's storms. The award notice, Nichols said, came as 'incredible news.' 'But between this and the state losing, getting their letters terminated, we feel just like stuck. What are we going to do? How are we going to move forward? How are we going to let our communities continue to fall behind?' Filling unmet needs More than one-fifth of Americans do not have broadband internet access at home, according to the Pew Research Center. In rural communities, the number jumps to 27 percent. Beyond giving people access to technology and fast internet, many programs funded by the Digital Equity Act sought to provide 'digital navigators' — human helpers to guide people new to the online world. 'In the United States we do not have a consistent source of funding to help individuals get online, understand how to be safe online and how to use that technology to accomplish all the things that are required now as part of life that are online,' said Siefer of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. This includes everything from providing families with internet hot spots so they can get online at home to helping seniors avoid online scams. 'Health, workforce, education, jobs, everything, right?' Siefer said. 'This law was going to be the start for the U.S. to figure out this issue. It's a new issue in the big scheme of things, because now technology is no longer a nice-to-have. You have to have the internet and you have to know how to use the technology just to survive, let alone to thrive today.' Siefer said the word 'equity' in the name probably prompted Trump to target the program for elimination. 'But it means that he didn't actually look at what this program does,' she said. 'Because who doesn't want grandma to be safe online? Who doesn't want a veteran to be able to talk to their doctor rather than get in a car and drive two hours? Who doesn't want students to be able to do their homework?' —- Ortutay reported from San Francisco.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sikora: Broadband investment will bring homes online in 2025
May 17—MORGANTOWN — Monongalia County Commissioner Sean Sikora said he expects the county's broadband projects to start bringing people online this year. The commission used approximately $8 million of its $20.6 million American Rescue Plan Act dollars to leverage more than $20 million in broadband projects by partnering with Internet service providers Comcast and Frontier. Sikora said both ISPs are moving forward as planned and on schedule, noting the deadline to expend those ARPA dollars is Dec. 31, 2026. "But we expect significant progress in 2025, and certainly by spring of 2026 a lot of these projects should be nearing completion. Of course, we allow some slack in there to allow for any unforeseen issues, " he said. "The Frontier project, I mean, we're already having reports of people seeing them doing the work in the Halleck Road area. So it's out there and people are noticing it." The commission has a total of five deployment projects in process — one with Frontier and four with Comcast. Those projects will deploy a total of 223.5 miles of fiber optic cable and provide connections for an estimated 2, 550 addresses. The Frontier project Sikora referenced will use about 11.4 miles of cable to provide connection opportunities for some 250 homes in the area of Gladesville and Halleck roads. The largest of the public /private endeavors was announced in June, when the commission said it was putting up just under $6 million to pull in an $11.84 million investment from Comcast to connect more than 2, 100 homes and businesses. While the project will touch unserved and underserved areas across the county, there's a particular emphasis on the western end, which has the greatest number of dark zones. Comcast also has smaller projects in the areas of Stewarts Run, River Road, and Gandalf Road (Snake Hill). Ricky Frazier Jr., senior vice president of Comcast's Keystone Region, said work is underway. "Comcast has started work on several network expansion projects across west, central, and eastern Monongalia County to connect unserved or underserved residents and businesses to our Xfinity and Comcast business services, " he said. "We value the continued partnership with Monongalia County as we look to deliver our fast, reliable Internet and innovative technology through these network expansions." These projects are the culmination of a four-year process that started when the commission hired Ohio-based Ice Miller to put together a comprehensive countywide broadband plan in May 2021. The plan would ultimately cost the county about $500, 000. While the commission initially anticipated using the finished document to secure federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grant dollars directly, the free-for-all nature with which money started being distributed caused it to shift gears. "We saw the writing on the wall, that a lot of these grants were going directly to ISPs. Well, we're an anomaly out there in that we have a plan and a strategy for executing that plan where nobody else really had that, " Sikora said. "So, when there was a move to rely on the ISPs to do all that legwork that we had already done, it kind of took the legs out from underneath us, so we had to pivot and move towards bringing the ISPs to us as partners." Frustrations are already mounting over the speed at which those BEAD dollars are coming out of Washington — but that's just the beginning. When and if those dollars reach their final recipients, that starts a five-year clock to build out the promised project. Meanwhile, work is underway in Monongalia County. "You still have grants that were awarded under RDOF (Rural Digital Opportunity Fund) where there's been no progress. What was that, five years ago ? So, it's kind of a mess. If you want to make something real confusing, get the government involved — and I say that as a county commissioner, " Sikora laughed. "We operate a little differently than other government entities."
