Civil Rights Groups Create Broadband Opportunities Coalition
Nine leading Civil Rights Groups have banded together to create the Broadband Opportunities Coalition.
These groups include but are not limited to, The Asian American Justice Center, National Association for the advancement of Colored People, National Urban League. These groups and five others have created a unified front with plans to encourage the two governing groups of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), enacted in February, to allow access to segments of our population currently living in areas where broadband is not as accessible.
Congress has directed the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration to allocate a minimum of $250 million towards programs that encourage adoption of this technology and at least $200 million for the public computing facilities.
This leaves the bulk share of the $7.2 billion in funding that was set aside by the U.S. government for programs to spur broadband deployment and adoption to go toward network build out projects.
The agencies administering the funds have collected more than 1,400 sets of public comments on how the grants should be administered.
The new coalition will partner with One Economy, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital outreach programs for low-income people.
Other groups are vying for these funds. The governing agencies involved are planning the first of 3 grant-application periods to run from July 2009 to September 2009, their hope is to award all of the first wave of funding by the end of the year.
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