NASUCA Annual Meeting
Elin Swanson Katz is Managing Director, Utilities & Associate General Counsel for Tison.
Here are some highlights from the NASUCA Annual Meeting:
COVID-19 has brought the broadband digital divide between rural and urban consumers into stark relief. Utilities may be in the best position, by using existing or easy to expand infrastructure, to help bridge this digital divide and support broadband deployment in underserved rural areas.
This panel examined how West Virginia focused efforts to bridge this divide by creating a Broadband Enhancement Council and working with utilities to build middle mile infrastructure. This panel examined practical challenges and what it takes to replicate this success.
Tison, Managing Director, Utilities & Associate General Counsel, Elin Swanson Katz: In full disclosure, when I left my post, the first thing I did when I went to Tilson was take the pen on writing West Virginia's state broadband policy plan, because the West Virginia Broadband Council is our client.
To give you some background facts, there's an estimated 3.7 million U.S. households with children who do not have internet access. That equates to about seven percent of households with children. There are places in West Virginia where that gets as high as thirty percent.