U.S. Administration Announces $930 Million to Expand and Strengthen America’s High-Speed Internet Networks
Biden-Harris Administration Announces $930 Million to Expand and Strengthen America’s High-Speed Internet Networks as Part of the Investing in America Agenda
The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced $930,021,354.34 to expand middle mile high-speed Internet infrastructure across 35 states and Puerto Rico as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. Under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All Initiative, the Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program invests in projects that build regional networks that connect to national Internet networks.
Middle mile Internet infrastructure carries large amounts of data over long distances, increases capacity to local networks, boosts network resiliency, lowers the cost of bringing high-speed Internet service to unconnected households, and helps connect unserved regions to the Internet backbone.
“Access to Internet is no longer a luxury and thanks to President Biden’s leadership, we are taking action to close the digital divide for everyone in America. The Middle Mile program will invest more than $900 million in the infrastructure needed to connect communities, military bases, and Tribal lands to the Internet, lower the cost of access, and increase bandwidth,”?said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.?“Much like how the interstate highway system connected every community in America to regional and national systems of highways, this program will help us connect communities across the country to regional and national networks that provide quality, affordable high-speed Internet access.”
The $1 billion Middle Mile program funds construction, improvement, or acquisition of middle mile infrastructure, along with administrative costs associated with running the program. Middle mile projects do not directly connect end-user locations.?
“The Middle Mile program is a force multiplier in our efforts to connect everyone in America,”?said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communication and Information Alan Davidson.?“Middle Mile infrastructure brings capacity to our local networks and lowers the cost for deploying future local networks. These grants will help build the foundation of networks that will in turn connect every home in the country to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service.”
New Middle Mile Grants
Background on the Enabling Middle Mile Grant Program
Additional grants will be announced on a rolling basis.
Connecting all communities across the United States to high-speed Internet service is central part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to rebuild our economy from the bottom up and middle out by rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure. The Investing in America agenda is driving over $470 billion in private sector manufacturing investments and creating good-paying jobs.
NTIA thoroughly and objectively reviewed applications using a three-stage process: Initial Administrative and Eligibility Review of Complete Application Packets, Merit Review, and Programmatic Review. Reviewers evaluated applications according to the criteria set forth in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).
Internet for All
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes a historic $65 billion investment to expand affordable and reliable high-speed Internet access in communities across the U.S. NTIA’s high-speed Internet grant programs funded by the law will build high-speed Internet infrastructure across the country, create more affordable high-speed Internet service options, and address the digital equity and inclusion needs in our communities.
The Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) provides a discount of up to $30 per month toward Internet service for eligible households and up to $75 per month for households on qualifying Tribal lands. Visit?GetInternet.gov?to learn more.
For more information on the Biden-Harris Administration’s high-speed Internet service programs, please visit?InternetforAll.gov.
About the National Telecommunications and Information Administration??
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is the Executive Branch agency that advises the President on telecommunications and information policy issues. NTIA’s programs and policymaking focus largely on expanding broadband Internet access and adoption in America, expanding the use of spectrum by all users, advancing public safety communications, and ensuring that the Internet remains an engine for innovation and economic growth.
++++++++++++++
Desertification Day: How Israel could help solve the desertification crisis
"There is hope," said Nicole Hod-Stroh. "Israel's Negev is leading this hope and should be a source of national pride."
By?MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN?- Published:?JUNE 17, 2023
领英推荐
More than 2 billion of the world's population?live in deserts?and drylands, accounting for nearly 40% of the earth. The expansion of the desert—desertification—could have severe and negative impacts on these people's lives, including food security, health, biodiversity and more.
On Saturday, the world observed "World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought." Israel is at the forefront of mitigating desertification. In the Negev Desert, Israeli innovation offers the world ways to build resilient crops, water technologies, clean energy and other tools.
"There is hope," said Nicole Hod-Stroh. "Israel's Negev is leading this hope and should be a source of national pride."
Hod-Stroh is CEO of the Merage Foundation Israel, a board member of the Israel Innovation Institute (III) and founding partner of the DeserTech Community—a joint initiative of the Merage Foundation, III, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ben Gurion University of the Negev. The idea is to encourage entrepreneurism and innovation around solving four of the most significant challenges of the desert: extreme temperatures, water scarcity, remote communities soil degradation.
Developing the DeserTech community
The idea of building an official DeserTech Community was planted several years ago when Minister Nir Barkat, then mayor of Jerusalem, brought representatives of the Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, where the Porter cluster program was invented, to evaluate the Negev. The idea was to build a community of linked industries and institutions—from suppliers to universities to government agencies—around what the representatives coined DeserTech.
The DeserTech Community formally launched three years ago, Hod-Stroh said and enjoys $3 million in annual investment from the Merage Foundation and the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
A few months ago, the community launched the DeserTech Marketplace website, where more than 80 related start-ups, mainly in?agriculture, water, infrastructure and energy, are featured, and companies can be located according to what challenges they are trying to solve. Most companies are in the Negev, but not all of them.
Last year, the DeserTech Community and Start-Up Nation Central released a mapping of the country's companies focused on DeserTech, including 66 concentrating on desertification challenges as part of their core business. In addition, another 237 offered related solutions. The report showed that funding for these companies was on the rise: From 2017 to 2021, funding increased by 437%, according to the report.
Approximately 17% of DeserTech start-ups were from the Negev, while only 2-3% of Israeli start-ups, in general, are from the region.
The impact of the DeserTech Community is already being seen.
Earlier this year, the "Great Green Wall" countries of the United Nations took part in a joint program between the DeserTech Community and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to find innovative solutions to tackle their most critical desert-related challenges.
In March, Israel hosted a delegation of African agricultural experts through the program, some of whom have no diplomatic relations with Israel.
"Desertification and climate change pose a danger to many countries. Israel is fighting this threat at home and providing its experience and capabilities to benefit Africa," Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said. "We will continue to deepen and strengthen our ties with countries that want to do so for prosperity and to build stability in the region."
The countries involved in the program are what are known as Sahelian countries—countries that lie on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert: Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. They are working together to restore 100 million hectares of degrading land by 2030, which will simultaneously and naturally capture 250 million tons of carbon and create 10 million green jobs.
The DeserTech Community offered participants workshops, training sessions and field trips to acquire skills and knowledge to identify challenges, assess potential technologies and write concrete project proposals ready for implementation in their respective countries.
Hod-Stroh said that solutions were already identified, and now the program is raising funds from international organizations and investors to help implement them.
Desertification and Drought Day was officially declared by the UN General Assembly and is meant to promote public awareness of the issues but also to "let people know that desertification and drought can be effectively tackled, that solutions are possible and that key tools to this aim lay in strengthened community participation and cooperation at all levels," the UN website says.
The Merage Foundation realized "Israel has no future if it does not develop the periphery," Hod-Stroh said. But the drive is to create something other than another Tel Aviv.
"With all the different R&D institutions in the Negev, including?eight agriculture institutions, BGU and its Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, dozens of wineries that have proven you can grow vineyards in the middle of the desert, and experts in the field of solar energy and desert agriculture, we have proof that we can create a thriving ecosystem around desert preservation.
"Now we need to connect these stakeholders to the rest of the world."
+++++++++++++