Items Tagged with 'Shirley Bloomfield'

Internet service providers will soon be competing to provide high-speed, broadband internet service to the most remote and hard-to-reach areas in the country.

Lawmakers want to use the farm bill to make the Agriculture Department's ReConnect loan and grant program for rural broadband permanent, but they still need to settle a debate about whether to ease the required service speeds.

Lawmakers are proposing creation of an Office of Rural Prosperity in the White House, which would be tasked with coordinating rural policy across the government.

Advocates for rural broadband are urging the FCC to act now and save the Universal Service Fund, while broadband providers are pumping the brakes.

President Joe Biden has tapped Jessica Rosenworcel to chair the Federal Communications Commission, offering her the chance to assume the role she is currently filling on an acting basis.

A massive bipartisan infrastructure bill the Senate is debating this week would make a historic $65 billion investment in expanding high-speed internet, but the bulk of the funding would be routed through states, and rural broadband advocates want to see the Agriculture Department play a bigger role in distributing the funding.

The White House unveiled a new interactive broadband mapping tool Thursday showing the majority of rural America is in need of access to high-speed internet above 25 megabits per second download speeds and 3 megabits per second upload speeds.