Lessons Learned from the Pandemic - Roundtable on Broadband Access, Affordability and Deployment
The Communications Equity and Diversity Council (CEDC) is an advisory council of the FCC, and is hosting this roundtable. The goal of the roundtable was to convene key stakeholders across community organizations, internet service providers (ISPs), federal agencies with emergency broadband funding, and state agencies to assess lessons learned concerning programs that provided broadband connectivity to opportunity communities during the pandemic. The half-day virtual workshop provided a platform to hear from a range of experts and a diverse set of stakeholders about efforts to promote digital equity, broadband adoption, and digital skills training for opportunity communities.
Two panel discussions were planned for the roundtable. Panel 1, Availability, Affordability, Deployment, helped identify successful strategies various organizations and entities implemented to promote deployment of affordable and accessible broadband service during the pandemic, and engaged about measures that worked well and the best practices going forward to address challenges in the event of a future pandemic or health emergency. This panel was scheduled for 10:10 am – 11:25 am EDT. Panel 2, Adoption and Digital Readiness, helped identify programs initiated during the pandemic to address adoption and digital readiness, and the opportunities that exist to scale successful programs, while funding them sufficiently to be effective. This panel was scheduled for 11:45 am – 1:00 pm EDT. See the Public Notice for the full agenda.
The public was invited to view the roundtable discussion via live feed from the FCC’s web page at www.fcc.gov/live and on the FCC’s YouTube channel. The public could also follow the event on Twitter@fcc or via the Commission’s Facebook page. Members of the public submitted questions during the roundtable discussions to livequestions@fcc.gov.
Members of the public may submit written comments to the CEDC using the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System, ECFS, at www.fcc.gov/ecfs. Any comments should be filed in GN Docket No. 17-208.
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