Piggybacking off this unprecedented commitment to middle-mile infrastructure, California has devoted resources to forging partnerships with rural communities. Construction of the network began in October 2022 in San Diego County, and the entire network is slated for completion in 2026. This will substantially reduce costs, especially for remote and Tribal areas, which are often overlooked in deployment planning. Even better, the 1 0,000-mile project that the bill supports is open-access, meaning that any provider can use the network. In 2021, California passed Senate Bill 156, which provides a staggering $6 billion for broadband deployment, much of it focused on the middle-mile problem. Matt Rantanen, director of technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association, has said, “the hard part is getting off the reservation to get to everybody else.” In California, the lack of a robust middle-mile has been particularly vexing for Native nations. Without these middle-mile facilitates, ultra-fast broadband to homes is impossible, because the local data has nowhere to go. Where the “last mile” connects a customer to their Internet Service Provider (ISP), the middle-mile is made up of high-capacity fiber lines that connect a provider to a core hub-often in a larger city-and other network hubs. Middle-mile connectivity is an often-overlooked element of broadband deployment. There are three aspects of California’s broadband readiness that set an example for other states: the middle-mile, rural partnerships, and “dig once” policies. This will probably include places like Central Valley (20% un- or underconnected) and Los Angeles County (19% un- or underconnected). California’s estimated $3.5 billion share-which will be matched by nearly $2 billion in industry dollars-will be directed towards the 6% of the state deemed “unserved” or underserved. After the $100 million per state, the remaining funds will be distributed according to the number of unserved locations as determined by the Federal Communication Commission’s new national broadband map. BEAD guarantees each state $100 million so long as they abide by certain requirements, like submitting a 5-year broadband and digital equity plan. Finally, $2.75 billion are allocated for two different digital equity programs, which will fund workforce training, skill development, and digital literacy.Īs the largest of the programs, BEAD is getting most of the attention. Next, the Affordable Connectivity Program subsidizes broadband subscriptions for low-income households. First, there’s $42 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, which will fund infrastructure development, such as installing fiber optic cables to homes and businesses. The Infrastructure Act’s broadband funding is divided into three major parts. Other estimates place the rural broadband gap at upwards of 51.3%.įortunately, however, California is also one of the best-situated states to tackle digital inequity. According to one study, only 76% of rural residents have adopted broadband. California is slated to receive the largest allocations of funds-an estimated $3.5 billion-because the state has a major connectivity disparity: Though over 90% of residents have access to the internet, that percentage drops precipitously in rural, remote, and tribal areas. The federal government’s recent financial commitment to broadband-defined by the government as speeds of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload-acknowledges this to be true.Ī year ago, Congress passed the trillion-dollar Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which allocated $65 billion for broadband deployment, affordability, and education. This became especially apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Broadband access is linked to everything from housing values to economic development, educational gains, telehealth, civic engagement, public safety, and quality of life. These scenarios are part of what has come to be known as “digital equity”-a term that captures the issues of high-speed internet (“broadband”) availability, affordability, adoption, hardware, and education.Īffordable, high-quality broadband is not a luxury or a nice-to-have, but a necessity. But it turns out that your town does not have strong enough internet to process a credit card transaction. You invest in a new point-of-sale system to streamline your payments and launch a website to attract customers outside of the state. Or imagine you’re a small business owner, eager to expand your business. You don’t know how to book a vaccine online, so you’ve been on hold for hours. Imagine you’re a senior citizen in the midst of the pandemic.
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