Adoption Resources

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s BroadbandUSA team, together with Next Century Cities, a nonprofit initiative of over 100 mayors and community officials dedicated to ensuring the availability of next-generation broadband Internet for all Americans convened a productive broadband workshop yesterday in Portland, Maine to explore ways to close the digital divide and expand broadband capacity throughout the New England region. The Digital New England Summit brought together about 250 broadband experts, community leaders and state and federal officials, including U.S. Senator Angus King, for this day-long gathering.

The event was the third in a series of regional workshops that NTIA is hosting across the country as part of its BroadbandUSA program, which is helping communities expand their local broadband capacity and use. The new initiative builds on lessons learned and best practices from NTIA’s successful broadband grant programs, which officially come to a close tomorrow.  Funded from money from the 2009 Recovery Act, NTIA invested more than $4 billion in roughly 230 projects across the country that have built critical network infrastructure, opened or upgraded public computer centers and established broadband adoption and digital inclusion programs. Our State Broadband Initiative Program invested another $300 million to help states collect broadband data for the National Broadband Map and expand their statewide broadband capacity.

NTIA’s BroadbandUSA initiative presents this guide to key federal programs that offer funding for broadband-related projects.  NTIA intends this guide to answer questions from communities on how to access federal funding to support broadband planning, public access, digital literacy, adoption, and deployment.

As President Obama observed earlier this year, “high-speed broadband is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.” So much of how we live our daily lives – from searching for a job to accessing health data – has moved online, which requires a high-speed broadband Internet connection. While there is broad consensus on the need to ensure Americans have access to broadband, figuring out how to fund it is still a major challenge for many communities.

In the last six years, NTIA has made great progress in expanding broadband access and adoption through our broadband grant programs, funded by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. While these grants are now coming to an end, we recognize there is still more work to do, and earlier this year we launched BroadbandUSA to continue this momentum. Leaning on the expertise gained from managing our $4 billion grant programs, BroadbandUSA provides communities with technical and strategic advice on how to expand broadband access and adoption.