#digital-inclusion

#digital-inclusion

New Mexico's Low-Income Telecommunications Assistance Program (LITAP) took a key step toward becoming law Friday with its unanimous passage by the state senate. Senate Bill 152 would provide $10 million in funding to help as many as 27,000 low-income residents in need in New Mexico get broadband. The funding will come from the Public Regulation Commission's State Rural Universal Service Fund. That fund has $40 million earmarked for broadband funding.

Algorithms can now transcribe meetings in real time, translate across languages instantly, summarise dense reports in seconds, and generate content tailored to different reading levels. For many users, these are not just productivity gains. They are meaningful improvements in access, sometimes the difference between participating fully and struggling quietly on the margins. Voice interfaces reduce reliance on complex forms. Automated captions support participation in live conversations. Generative tools can rephrase technical or academic language into something clearer and more digestible.

The scale of this shift is striking. According to the World Economic Forum , approximately 78 million new job opportunities will emerge by 2030 due to technological change, but urgent upskilling is needed to ensure workforces are ready. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that over three billion people globally are still offline, highlighting the persistent gaps in access to digital tools and knowledge. In the UK alone, 7.9 million adults lack basic digital skills, while 21 million struggle with essential digital tasks required at work.

OpenAI has begun asking a small group of advertisers to commit a minimum spend of USD$200,000 (£148,000) as it tests advertising on ChatGPT, the company has confirmed. The initiative is being run as a tightly managed beta, with participation limited to a select number of brands. According to an OpenAI spokesperson, the restricted rollout is intentional and designed to assess which types of advertising deliver meaningful value to users within the ChatGPT experience.

Reading the media these days, you would be forgiven for thinking the technology, journalism, and investment communities were inadvertently wishing an AI 'bubble' into existence. Whether a bubble exists or not remains debatable, but the conversation itself has taken on a life of its own. Every article predicting the collapse of the NASDAQ increases investor nervousness, which leads to another article about the collapse of the NASDAQ, and so the world turns ad infinitum.

Chair of the committee Dame Chi Onwurah started by asking about cellular coverage, noting that the government's aim in its Proposed Statement of Strategic Priorities (SSP) is to have high-quality standalone 5G in all populated areas of the UK by 2030. She asked what that meant. Sadly, Baroness Lloyd struggled to articulate what "high-quality standalone 5G" means. She offered that "standalone 5G, which is sometimes called 5G-plus, is the next capability on from 5G. It allows much better data transfer."

This isn't because they don't want it. In our conversations with nonprofits, we've heard a consistent story: small teams know AI could help, but learning to use it sits at the bottom of an endless to-do list. And when they do consider adoption, the stakes feel high-these organizations serve vulnerable populations and handle sensitive data. They can't afford to get it wrong.

In September, the government announced plans to issue all legal residents a digital identity by August 2029, which in the first instance is set to be used to prove eligibility to work. Prime minister Keir Starmer said digital IDs were "an enormous opportunity for the UK." As well as making it tougher to work illegally, they would also "offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly," he said.

Accessing the internet is not a luxury in the 21st century, and high speed internet ought to be thought of as an essential utility like water or gas. It is unconscionable that seniors and school-age kids stand outside of private businesses across our city simply to access the internet, and we must do better. While it seems likely that federal funding for broadband expansion will be unreliable for at least the next four years,

Scams are becoming pervasive, and there can be few people in the country who haven't received a text message or email from a fraudster pretending to be their bank or HMRC, the UK government's tax agency, or claiming to be a delivery firm holding a package for them. Older people are often targeted, and can lose substantial sums of money.

The Digital Opportunity Index aims to quantitatively evaluate broadband providers' performance in serving rural, low-income, and Tribal areas, comprising 45 out of 100 points.

Digital skills and reliable connectivity go hand in hand, and both are essential for rural Wales. I’m delighted to work with VodafoneThree on this initiative.

The FWA element of CONNECT uses 5G and 4G LTE networking. The 5G service delivers download speeds as fast as 280 Mbps and uploads as fast as 80 Mbps.

Barnet Council's BOOST service has supported over 6,200 residents since its launch in 2015, helping more than 3,300 find employment and addressing digital exclusion.

For families across Longmont, having a high-speed internet connection isn't optional - it's vital. We want our NextLight community to know that when times get challenging, we can help them stay connected so that they can continue to work, study and thrive.