Press Release
January 22, 2021
Contact: Jon Conradi
[email protected]

Expanding Connectivity for American Workers and Small Businesses Will Help More Weather the Pandemic and Compete and Thrive Moving Forward  

Washington, D.C. – On taking office, the Biden Administration set thematics for each day of the new president’s first weeks in office to highlight top priorities for the nation. Each day Connect Americans Now (CAN) will weigh-in with our take — outlining how eliminating the digital divide is critical to achieving these objectives. Today, CAN executive director Richard T. Cullen released the following statement on the administration’s Friday focus of providing relief to rebuild the economy.

“The pandemic has laid bare the massive disparities between workers, small business and communities that have access to broadband and those that don’t,” said CAN executive director Richard T. Cullen. “For those with connectivity, broadband has supported a shift to telework, helped small businesses adapt and find new ways to reach and serve their customers and enabled communities to take advantage of technology to solve the unique challenges presented by this crisis.”

“Access to broadband connectivity will be no less vital as America works to defeat the pandemic, economically recover from the events of this past year and thrive moving forward,” Cullen continued. “For that reason, CAN has welcomed positive action in Washington to provide broadband funding as part of COVID-19 relief packages and encourages Congress and the new administration to ensure additional resources for broadband deployments and affordability are part of any future relief measures.”

“To ensure America’s workers and small businesses, in every community, are able to compete in a global marketplace and achieve long term prosperity, policymakers must also move decisively to completely eliminate the digital divide,” Cullen added. “This can be achieved by clearing regulatory barriers to innovative solutions, maximizing spectrum resources, swiftly fixing the nation’s data on the broadband gap and providing the resources required to bring connectivity to every unserved and underserved American.”

CAN is a coalition of more than 275 organizations and companies representing voices for agriculture, health care, education, small business, technology, veterans, rural advocacy and more — committed to completely and swiftly eliminating the digital divide in America through an all-of-the-above approach.

Read more on CAN and our mission HERE.

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