Telecom

USDA announces $759M for high-speed internet in rural areas

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is making available $759 million in grants and loans to enable rural communities to access high-speed internet, part of the broader $65 billion push for high-speed connectivity from last ...

Internet

Feds: $401M will add high-speed internet to rural US places

The federal government is pledging $401 million in grants and loans to expand the reach and improve the speed of internet for rural residents, tribes and businesses in remote parts of 11 states from Alaska to Arkansas.

Telecom

Biden administration to release $45B for nationwide internet

The Biden administration is taking the first steps to release $45 billion to ensure that every U.S. resident has access to high-speed internet by roughly 2028, inviting governors and other leaders on Friday to start the application ...

Telecom

Biden starts program to provide discounted internet service

The Biden administration announced on Monday that 20 internet companies have agreed to provide discounted service to people with low incomes, a program that could effectively make tens of millions of households eligible for ...

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Broadband Internet access

Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just broadband, is high data rate Internet access—typically contrasted with dial-up access over a 56k modem.

Dial-up modems are limited to a bitrate of less than 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second) and require the full use of a telephone line—whereas broadband technologies supply more than double this rate and generally without disrupting telephone use.

Although various minimum bandwidths have been used in definitions of broadband, ranging up from 64 kbit/s up to 2.0 Mbit/s, the 2006 OECD report is typical by defining broadband as having download data transfer rates equal to or faster than 256 kbit/s, while the United States FCC, as of 2008, defines broadband as anything above 768 kbit/s. The trend is to raise the threshold of the broadband definition as the marketplace rolls out faster services.

Data rates are defined in terms of maximum download because several common consumer broadband technologies such as ADSL are "asymmetric"—supporting much slower maximum upload data rate than download.

"Broadband penetration" is now treated as a key economic indicator.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA