![]() ![]() Q: How far behind is the US when it comes to broadband compared to the rest of the world?Īlmost all large countries struggle with making high-speed broadband available to rural areas. The bill is the first large-scale effort to address both availability and adoption earlier efforts largely provided money to rural areas to build out broadband internet, about $5B a year, but did not address affordability except for the emergency broadband benefit program started in May 2021. Affordability is an important reason for the discrepancy between availability and adoption. But only about 77% of adults use the internet at home (“adoption”). (That is much slower than most current cable or fiber offerings.) A recent effort using a variety of data sources estimates that about 93%of households could subscribe to basic broadband or faster, leaving about 14.3 million households without access except via expensive and unreliable satellite service or very slow DSL. Currently, there is no precise data of how many homes have access to basic fixed internet service, defined as a speed of 25 megabits download. Internet access has two facets: availability and adoption. Q: What is the current state of internet access in the US? Why is it important that the bill allots $65 billion to improve access for rural areas, low-income families, and tribal communities? We asked Henning Schulzrinne, the Julian Clarence Levi Professor of computer science and an internet networks expert, how the bill will impact internet access. ![]() The plan is to build broadband networks, improve internet infrastructure, and help lower internet service cost. Currently, 30 million Americans live in areas where broadband internet is not available like in rural areas and lower-income urban areas. The $1 trillion dollar Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will deliver $65 billion dollars to improve internet access. Professor Henning Schulzrinne unpacks the infrastructure bill and how it will expand broadband access for Americans. ![]()
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