Image
Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
In Our View: Don't Leave Out The Cities
By
on
The State of Texas is notorious for pitting communities against one another. This time around, it's the little town versus the big city in the funding arena to improve Internet access.
Last week, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar kicked off his Texas Broadband Listening Tour 2022, scheduled to take place at 12 different locations statewide. The goal of his stakeholder listening tour is to collect feedback for Texas' newly created broadband development office and how the state should spend a once-in-a-generation windfall of federal resources to close the digital divide. Great news for a state the size of Texas with 29 million residents, right? It depends on where you live. The majority of the communities hosting a public forum are smaller communities. Remember the Alamo? Not Heger's office. Dallas and Austin made the list of stops, but San Antonio and Houston, with some of the state's highest populations, didn't make the cut for the tour.
Image
Texas has both unserved and underserved communities living on the wrong side of the digital divide. From 8-80 years old, residents and businesses throughout rural, suburban, and urban communities are all harmed by the lack of community broadband infrastructure, unaffordable connectivity services, and digital discrimination.
We applaud the approach of public officials doing listening tours. However, we are deeply concerned that many states - red and blue - will ignore the needs of urban residents while focusing solely on solutions for rural areas. We laid this out more broadly in a policy brief we published last year. We can ensure everyone has high-quality Internet access, but we need to make sure that is the explicit goal.
If you'd like to participate in Texas' broadband listening tour, but you live too far to attend in person, a handy online survey is available until May 5, 2022, here. Virtual event information is currently unavailable.
What else can your community do to close the digital divide?
Attend: Building for Digital Equity - Demystifying Broadband Policy and Funding
Read: NDIA Digital Inclusion Coalition Guidebook
Research: Current projects being planned or considered in Texas
Subscribe: Community Broadband Bits Podcast
Watch: What’s it take to run fiber to the home?
Geoterm
Related Stories
Building for Digital Equity: Life After ACP Reprise
If you missed our most recent Building for Digital Equity Livestream – Life After ACP – the virtual event can still be seen in its entirety here.
Municipal Broadband Networks Deliver On Affordability Before And After ACP
In a recently published piece in The American Prospect, Sean Gonsalves, ILSR's Community Broadband Networks Initiative Associate Director for Communications, reports on four cities across the U.S. that are well prepared to deal with the demise of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).
Life After ACP B4DE Today
Today, the first Building for Digital Equity livestream of the year will kick off at 3 PM ET with a focus on "Life After ACP."
Speakers And Agenda Announced for #B4DE Livestream ‘Life After ACP’
Bringing together a nationwide cross-section of leading digital inclusion practitioners, the first Building For Digital Equity (#B4DE) livestream of the year is set to zoom in on the imminent end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) on March 20.
Fort Worth Strikes Public Private Partnership To Set Table for Citywide Fiber Network
Fort Worth, Texas, has struck a $7.5 million, 34-year contract with Dallas-based Sprocket Networks to construct a new 300-mile fiber optic backbone to shore up city municipal communications needs, expand affordable access to marginalized neighborhoods, and boost local economic development. City officials say construction crews are expected to begin work sometime in the next three to six months, with the full network construction expected to cost $65 million and take three years to complete.
Colorado and Texas Municipal Broadband Networks Nab National Awards
The National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) recently announced that its Community Broadband Projects of the Year Awards for 2023 will go to the Connexion network in Fort Collins, Colorado and TeamPharr.net in Pharr, Texas. Fort Collins is also a part of a municipal-owned communications partnership known as Northern Colorado Community Fiber, which received the Fiber Broadband Association Star Award for going “above and beyond what is expected in the advancement of Fiber-to-the-Home.”