FCC Chairman Announces $500 Million Rural Broadband Investment

According to reports from 2016, more than a third of America’s rural citizens don’t have access to broadband internet. This puts communities at a stark disadvantage, reducing businesses’ ability to access greater markets through online portals, and restricting the education of our youth. The internet is a tremendous tool, and it’s vitally important that every American has high speed access to it.

The GAIN coalition has previously expressed our support for expanding rural access to broadband internet, and we’re thrilled to see the FCC take strong action to do exactly that.

“We need more deployment in sparsely populated rural areas if we’re going to extend digital opportunity to all Americans,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement. “But I’ve heard from community leaders, Congress and carriers that insufficient, unpredictable funding has kept them from reaching this goal. With the $500 million in new funding provided by this order, we’ll boost broadband deployment in rural America and put our high-cost system on a more efficient path, helping to ensure that every American can benefit from the digital revolution.”

This, in tandem with the great efforts already being made by the private sector, propel us down the path towards universal access to high speed internet across the country. The GAIN coalition is excited for these projects to move forward, and we’re glad to see such a strong commitment across the board to improving our nation’s infrastructure.