By Mark Pattison | Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Was it a pre-Memorial Day rush? The availability of funds to strengthen internet connections throughout the United States, regardless of location and regardless of funding source, seems to be the new “in” thing.
The question is: What took so long?
But just consider some of these headlines as an indication that both governments and private entities are taking this seriously.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has established basic rules for providers to apply for some of the $42.5 billion to be made available in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment grants. The program, which is known as BEAD and will provide states grant money to award providers, has already drawn interest.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said his state is in line to receive $100 million in BEAD funding.
Not to be outdone, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state awarded contracts to two vendors worth nearly $225 million to supply enough optical fiber and other materials necessary for building 3,000 miles of broadband infrastructure.
Vermont will spend more than $16 million in broadband construction grants that will bring fiber broadband speeds to residents of towns in the state’s Northeast Kingdom region, connecting close to 1,500 households. The state had previously appropriated $245 million in broadband funding from the American Rescue Plan, the relief package Congress passed in March 2021 to help Americans struggling because of the pandemic.
More than a decade ago, a Vermont state lawmaker talked openly about waking at 4 a.m. so he could conduct state business through a dial-up service in hopes that traffic wouldn’t bog down his access.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced commitments from 20 internet service providers to lower high-speed internet costs for consumers through the Affordable Connectivity Program, a $14.2 billion federal program to subsidize broadband service for low-income households.
Participating broadband providers will get up to $30 a month per household — up to $75 a month if the household is on tribal land — to provide service to low-income households. They also must allow consumers to apply their subsidy to any monthly plan offered.
AT&T CEO John Stankey said his company is enlisting employees across the organization to make its fiber rollout to 30 million homes by 2025 a success, taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to ensure it pushes penetration rates up as quickly as possible to get a return on its investments.
Amazing what money can do, eh?
But all this activity shows how critical it is to get connected and stay connected.
More than a century ago, when radio was in its infancy, one might not have needed a plug. Although seemingly contradictory, someone with enough technical savvy might have been able to position wires in such a way that there would be a “wireless” set in the house.
As radio matured prior to World War II, radios were often so big they constituted a piece of furniture. But there was a paucity of stations — so few there was no cry for a regulatory authority to sort through the morass, because there was none.
Eventually, a Federal Radio Commission — now the Federal Communications Commission — was established to serve as a traffic cop for the public airwaves. The FRC’s charge spread from radio to television, cellphones, and all sorts of communications needs the depend on over-the-air transmission.
Today, we are awash in communications directed our way. Some of it is trash, some of it is pornographic, designed to appeal to our baser instincts, either to get us to believe what someone else believes, or for us to buy whatever it is they’re selling.
Yet consider something as seemingly simple as how many companies hiring workers require applicants to go to a website to apply for a job. How many of us find it ridiculously easy to communicate with friends, relatives and associates a block away — and a continent away — thanks to the internet? You may believe you can do without it, but try going cold turkey. You haven’t done so yet, have you?
And think of how many children were able to continue their schooling while barely skipping a beat thanks to the ingenuity of educators and schools with technology, It’s true there was a digital divide where the adverse effects were felt more deeply by students in rural and urban districts. But think of how wide that learning gap would have been, for any child in any school system, without online options.
Thousands knew, and millions sensed, that these online upgrades should have been offered yesterday, if not before. They were right.