Predicting the Impact of Broadband Access

Our lives are governed by how connected we are to others, and during the pandemic, it became abundantly clear that fast internet access is an integral part of that. But more than a quarter of the country lacks access to broadband, and accessibility is often split down demographic lines. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has set aside $65 billion to improve broadband infrastructure and affordability, but states need help figuring out how to use the money and how to later evaluate the impact - Where should you invest in order to have the most impact?

We are working with the California Department of Technology to help answer that question. Our tool allows users to adjust broadband metrics in a region to see how they impact various socio-economic metrics. For example, it could predict that a 10 MBPs increase in broadband speed within a region would result in a 2% increase in employment rate or an increase of around 20 more people employed if in a region sized 1000. Using our tool, government agencies will have visibility into how to prioritize their funding, and help those most in need.