Internet

(Getty Images illustration)

‘The internet is no longer a luxury’: $667M from USDA for rural broadband

BY: - August 21, 2023

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend another $667 million on rural broadband loans and grants, the department said Monday, marking the fourth round of Biden administration funding under a program that the 2021 infrastructure law invigorated. Nearly three-quarters of the funding, $493 million, will go toward grants, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on a […]

Workers lay fiber-optic cable at a broadband expansion site near Colton in May 2023. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)

South Dakota to receive $207 million from new Biden broadband plan

BY: - June 26, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Monday announced $42.45 billion to connect all Americans to high-speed broadband internet by the end of the decade, likening the ambitious goal to FDR’s New Deal-era rural electrification program that brought the then-modern technology to farms and rural areas across the United States. The funding includes about $207 million […]

Workers lay fiber-optic cable at a broadband expansion site near Colton in May 2023. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)

Inflation drives up cost of broadband internet projects

BY: - June 5, 2023

COLTON — Inflation has taken a toll on ambitious state and national plans for expanding access to high-speed internet service, causing funding for the projects to lose purchasing power.  And while proponents say it’s time to double down on support for the projects, a state representative sees it as an opportunity to rein in the […]

Teenage student Jose Lara studies his daily schoolwork on his laptop at his home in the slum of Catia during the second month of quarantine on April 27, 2020, in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo by Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Getty Images)

Lack of action by Congress to protect kids online criticized at U.S. Senate hearing

BY: - February 14, 2023

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators on Tuesday voiced frustration and outrage that Congress has been unable to pass legislation bolstering protection for children online, including adding guardrails to social media platforms.  During a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrats and Republicans pledged to keep working together to pass several bipartisan bills that didn’t make it […]

(USDA Photo by Lance Cheung)

Nonprofit tagged to enroll low income South Dakotans in monthly internet discount program

BY: - January 10, 2023

A Sioux Falls nonprofit is one of five recipients nationally of a new grant to connect people to the internet. Roughly one in six South Dakotans don’t have access to high-speed internet, according to state data from 2021. In Sioux Falls, the state’s largest city, roughly 15% of households lack internet access at home or […]

(USDA Photo by Lance Cheung)

$17 million in federal funding headed to Cheyenne River telecom for rural broadband

BY: - October 27, 2022

Hundreds of people on the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock reservations will soon have high-speed internet access thanks to a $17 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grant award to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Telephone Authority represents the largest amount offered anywhere in South Dakota through the USDA’s ReConnect Program.  The […]