USDA Rural Broadband Investment Tops $200 Million In 2018

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The USDA has announced plans for a pilot program to bring broadband internet to all of rural America. The plan, which Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue calls a “proof of concept,” will provide $600 million dollars in grants and loans to internet service providers to bring connection to parts of the country that are too remote, underpopulated or expensive to serve. “I absolutely, unequivocally believe that broadband connectivity is part of rural prosperity,” said Perdue in a press conference on Dec. 13. “We don’t want an urban rural divide in this country.

Business & Consumer Affairs

Net Neutrality Ruling Creates Wide Band Of Uncertainty About Internet Access

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This story is reprinted with permission from The Courier (Waterloo-Cedar Falls). Courier reporter Mike Anderson is a former IowaWatch reporter.CEDAR FALLS — Depending on who you ask, the free and open structure of the Internet may be on the verge of a massive transformation. It’s been nearly a month since a federal court struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules, a set of principles that prohibited Internet service providers from tampering with the traffic flowing over their networks. Net neutrality advocates are waiting for the next shoe to drop, while Internet service providers in Iowa and across the country continue to insist it won’t. “We’re doing what we did yesterday,” said Tom Larsen, the group vice president of legal affairs for Mediacom.