{"id":13,"date":"2023-01-27T03:52:34","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T03:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/?p=13"},"modified":"2023-01-27T03:52:34","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T03:52:34","slug":"get-rural-america-up-to-speed-closing-the-broadband-divide-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/2023\/01\/27\/get-rural-america-up-to-speed-closing-the-broadband-divide-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Rural America Up to Speed: Closing the Broadband Divide Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Dave Hoefler<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s been a few weeks since starting my Capstone Project, and I’ve gotten a better idea of what the project entails. Our project sponsor, The Precision Ag Connectivity & Accuracy Stakeholder Alliance (PAgCASA), has been attempting to map the rural broadband divide by giving rural communities the tools that they need to accurately measure their connectivity levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do rural communities compare?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to the FCC’s 2020 Broadband Deployment Report<\/a>, 22.3% of Americans in rural areas and 27.7% of residents in Tribal lands lack access to high-speed broadband coverage, as opposed to 1.5% of Americans in urban areas (high-speed connections are defined as fixed terrestrial connections with 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds). These figures have decreased year-over-year. By comparison, in 2014 39.7% of rural Americans and 42.9% of tribal residents lacked access to fixed high-speed broadband connections. However, it is important to note that urban connectivity was above 95% during this time period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does this matter?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our world has become more and more digital with each year that passes. Technology allows people to learn, work, socialize, and more with others around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted how critical broadband infrastructure is to all communities, with entire households learning and working remotely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Broadband Speed Guide<\/em>. Federal Communications Commission. (2022, July 18).
https:\/\/www.fcc.gov\/consumers\/guides\/broadband-speed-guide
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To an extent, the FCC’s connectivity goals establish a bare minimum for high-speed connectivity standards. The above speed guide displays the average minimum download speeds required for common internet activities. As one could imagine 25 Mbps could be easily reached by a handful of devices streaming a video, participating in a conference call, or gaming. Additionally, the FCC’s data is self-reported by ISPs and rates connectivity at the census block level, meaning that connectivity rates could potentially be significantly underreported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This project is a grassroots effort that attempts to close the digital gap by empowering communities with the data that they need to advocate for targeted improvements to their telecommunications infrastructure. Part 2 of this post will go into more detail about the desired outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a few weeks since starting my Capstone Project, and I’ve gotten a better idea of what the project entails. Our project sponsor, The Precision Ag Connectivity & Accuracy Stakeholder Alliance (PAgCASA), has been attempting to map the rural broadband divide by giving rural communities the tools that they need to accurately measure their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13244,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13244"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/jadayoung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}