{"id":424522,"date":"2022-09-27T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T08:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uat.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=424522"},"modified":"2022-09-02T16:44:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T16:44:09","slug":"timbuktu-needs-broadband-too","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/timbuktu-needs-broadband-too","title":{"rendered":"Timbuktu Needs Broadband, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"undefined block-editor-paragraph\">We don\u2019t mean Timbuktu, Mali in Africa, but the proverbial \u201cTimbuktu.\u201d The rural, far away communities; those outside the big cities.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"undefined block-editor-paragraph\">The pandemic made it very clear that the lack of reliable and affordable broadband in our communities is an economic and social crisis. In early 2021, we recognized this rising issue, and joined the National League of Cities to develop and pilot GIS solutions with their member cities that could be used by governments of all sizes to address broadband access. We actually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/announcements\/esri-wins-nlc-capstone-challenge-for-expanding-broadband-access\/\">won an award<\/a> for our work. But that\u2019s not why we did it.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"undefined block-editor-paragraph\">We did it because we recognized that broadband was another location problem. With GIS tools, we knew governments would be able to solve pressing questions such as:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Where is existing broadband coverage, and how reliable and affordable is it?<\/li><li>Where should I prioritize my investment?<\/li><li>How can we address shifting demographics, population growth, and vulnerable populations?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n<p class=\"undefined block-editor-paragraph\">We released the free solutions that we created with NLC that you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arcgis.com\/apps\/solutions\/index.html?gallery=true&amp;solution=9vuugs0ghmq7f9jcb9og2qsxur5ajicx&amp;sortField=relevance&amp;sortOrder=desc&amp;type=New#home\">download now<\/a>. We are seeing governments leverage them to better understand their community\u2019s needs, plan broadband expansion, efficiently partner with providers, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/federal-funding\/funded-areas\/broadband\">secure funding<\/a>, and fast-track future broadband investment.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"undefined block-editor-paragraph\">You\u2019re able to read this because you have access to broadband. So, there\u2019s no excuse \u2013 download the solutions to address broadband in your community or print this out and mail it to someone without broadband. Whichever is easier.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3092],"tags":[3172],"class_list":["post-424522","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas-that-might-change-the-world-government","tag-broadband","industry-local-and-state-government"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Timbuktu Needs Broadband, Too | Ideas That Might Change the World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Governments need to prioritize broadband expansion in order to provide quality of life for residents.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/timbuktu-needs-broadband-too\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Timbuktu Needs Broadband, Too\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Governments need to prioritize broadband expansion in order to provide quality of life for residents.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/timbuktu-needs-broadband-too\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Industry Blogs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/timbuktu-needs-broadband-too\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/timbuktu-needs-broadband-too\",\"name\":\"Timbuktu Needs Broadband, Too | Ideas that Might Change the World\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-09-27T08:15:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"Governments need to prioritize broadband expansion in order to provide quality of life for residents.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/timbuktu-needs-broadband-too#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/timbuktu-needs-broadband-too\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/timbuktu-needs-broadband-too#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Timbuktu Needs Broadband, Too\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Industry Blogs\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c18e9bf34a2bb0d9c1bea545bbde4f7b\",\"name\":\"Shannon Valdizon\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/G73813_ShannonValdizon_08-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/G73813_ShannonValdizon_08-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Shannon Valdizon\"},\"description\":\"Shannon Valdizon is the Marketing Lead for the State and Local Government Industry Solutions team at Esri. 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