Barbara Van Schewick on Innovation and Architecture

In January, we released our new census of municipal networks in the United States for 2024, and the significant growth that we've seen over the last two years as more and more cities commit to building Internet infrastructure to add new tools for their local government, incentivize new economic development, and improve connectivity for households. The trend has not gone unnoticed by the monopoly players and their allies, and a new short documentary by Light Reading does a great job of outlining the stakes for local governments, residents stuck on poor connections, and the incumbents as the wave of municipal networks grows.

Thanks to a coalition of local digital equity advocates inroads are being made on fixing long-broken California cable franchise law as Digital Equity LA celebrates a major victory in pressuring the California Public Utilities Commission to produce more accurate maps that will be used to determine where the state's broadband funds should be targeted. These efforts come as California is putting its $7 billion broadband expansion plan into place with an eye on boosting competition and driving down consumer costs.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers continues to make slow but steady progress on legislation that would make federal broadband grants tax exempt, providing significant relief for big and small companies alike trying to bridge America’s stubborn digital divide. Telecom industry watchers have been warning for years that upwards of 21 percent of new grants would need to be paid back to the United States government in the form of taxation, complicating project financing and scale.

This week we are giving you a double dose of our new Building For Digital Equity podcast. Episode 4 features Kim Ilinon and Ella Silvas, two Interactive Media Design students from the University of Washington-Bothell. And in Episode 5 we talk with Susan Corbett, Executive Director of the National Digital Equity Center, about how she went from being the owner of a small ISP in rural Maine to a national digital equity advocate.