Black churches play a key role in connecting communities to broadband internet

In an effort to address a lack of broadband access, Indigenous communities are working together, and with local organizations, to acquire funding to bring internet access to their communities and close the digital divide.

The Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) is transforming community organizers into “digital stewards” who are literally building out internet connection in their communities. In Detroit, where 40% of residents don’t have internet access, this service through the EII is invaluable. The program is also equipping youth of color with relevant technology skills and creating a stronger sense of place for the three Detroit neighborhoods it serves.

To make internet connectivity accessible and affordable across Africa, Dr. Harold Omondi developed “internet from the moon,” a technology that uses satellite dishes to communicate with transponders placed in the moon several years ago by NASA. The transponders can send and receive information and, since the moon keeps the same side of its surface pointed towards earth, the connection cannot be lost. Still in the piloting phase, the system currently offers free internet at Jomo Kenyatta University, where over 1,200 people login every day, and has another station in South Sudan serving 300-500 people daily.

In the 1980s, a virtual messaging network, then known as bulletin board systems (BBSs), acted as a support group for many who were in search of peer support and reliable information as the AIDS epidemic spread. Although the site was a grassroots effort with little to no financial stability, it grew to 500 daily users and 100 messages posted per day.

A village in the UK didn't have access to internet, so the community joined together to build the infrastructure for broadband in their area. Although "building resilient, fibre-fed networks in rural areas" wasn't easy or cheap, it has made a difference, especially during the pandemic, in helping the community feel less isolated.

Today, 23 million rural Americans can’t access broadband speed internet. As deregulation of net neutrality threatens to slow down internet speed even further, local internet co-ops are bringing higher-speed access to rural towns, Native American reservations, and even urban areas that do not currently have quality internet. Today, small internet service providers, spurred by local communities, are providing a real safeguard to net neutrality rollbacks.

New crowdfunding options can help even the smallest donor's contributions to have a meaningful impact, bolstering a sense of personal involvement, maximizing knowledge about causes, and inspiring greater participation.

The residents of Etteln, Germany responded to rural decline and digital exclusion by organizing grassroots collective action—including volunteer-led fiber-optic installation and community-driven digital innovations—which reversed population loss, doubled school enrollment, earned global recognition as the world's smartest city, and created a replicable model now used by 500+ cities worldwide.

Faced with inadequate internet service that was driving away businesses, the remote West Texas town of Monahans launched a community-driven initiative to build its own fiber optic broadband network. The town cobbled together $3.2 million from a variety of sources, including federal CARES Act funds and venture capital, to create an underground fiber network that serves about 2,000 homes and businesses, with plans to expand.

A rural county in Texas brought broadband access to locals with the help of internet service provider Nextlink, the Citizens Broadband Radio Service and Tarana Wireless. Following a $2.6 million investment, over seven months, the partners built infrastructure that offers download speeds of 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of 20 megabits per second.