During a National Telecommunications and Information Administration webinar, speakers discussed how broadband organizations can influence economic development projects, job numbers, local revenues and more. Read more.

The lack of broadband in rural America has increasingly impacted our nation’s food supply and the communities that farmers call home. Currently, 29% of U.S. farms do not have access to the internet. This means that nearly one-third of U.S. farms are unable to take advantage of precision farming technology that relies on broadband to help increase production, improve distribution, and reduce costs. These technologies are even more critical as climate change is
expected to negatively impact agriculture production in America. Meanwhile, households in farming communities face many of the same challenges as unserved populations in urban areas who are unable to work and learn from home. Congress must prioritize policies that promote broadband access in order to help U.S. farmers.

Even if broadband is available and affordable, individuals and families can’t connect without equipment and digital literacy.
● Twenty-one percent of non-broadband users cite the cost of a computer as one of the reasons they
do not have broadband at home.
● Many American workers lack digital skills they need to successfully navigate digital devices.
● The Digital Equity Act would provide funding to states to implement digital equity plans, and to
other stakeholders to support digital equity projects.

Broadband connectivity is critical to America’s health. Telehealth, providing healthcare services and information at a
distance, is rapidly growing in popularity and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the value of telehealth to the
forefront of national healthcare discussions. The number of hospitals utilizing telehealth more than doubled over the
last decade , with savings for both patient and provider . Additionally, medical platforms and technologies need reliable
broadband to function. Insufficient access could literally be a matter of life and death.

Policies in response to COVID-19 have brought about awe-inspiring growth in telehealth
services. However, there are multiple remaining telehealth issues that all levels of government
need to be aware of.

A recently launched dashboard is showing users where people are obeying stay-at-home orders or not. The tool uses anonymized cellphone location data to identify where people are congregating during stay-home orders

Public Research Universities Advancing Digital Inclusion: A concept paper by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.