One aspect of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021 that isn’t discussed as much as the digital equity and broadband money is the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) formalized definition of “digital discrimination.” The FCC is set to create rules to prevent and penalize digital discrimination and promote equal access to broadband across the country, regardless of income level, ethnicity, race, religion, or national origin. The IIJA requires the FCC to create and adopt these rules by November 2023.
The FCC kickstarted the rulemaking process on March 17, 2022 when they released a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) seeking comment on how to implement the digital discrimination section (Section 60506) of the Infrastructure Act. Comments were due yesterday, May 16, 2022. The FCC will accept replies to the comments submitted yesterday until June 30, 2022 and later will release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) at which they’ll request more comments from the public on how the rules should be constructed and implemented.
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