Today:  PEW Research Report Finds Majority of Seniors Use Broadband, Nevada Lifeline Verifier Contract

PEW Research Report Finds Majority of Seniors Use Broadband

A new report by the Pew Research Center finds that tech adoption among older adults is increasing.  Today, 67% of seniors use the internet – a 55-percentage-point increase in just under two decades. And for the first time, half of older Americans now have broadband at home. In addition, 42% of adults ages 65 and older now report owning smartphones, up from just 18% in 2013.  Despite these gains, the report finds that many seniors remain largely disconnected from the digital revolution. One-third of adults ages 65 and older say they never use the internet, and roughly half (49%) say they do not have home broadband services. Meanwhile, even with their recent gains, the proportion of seniors who say they own smartphones is 42 percentage points lower than those ages 18 to 64.  Adoption rates also vary greatly by household income. Fully 87% of seniors living in households earning $75,000 or more a year say they have home broadband, compared with just 27% of seniors whose annual household income is below $30,000. Educational differences follow a similar pattern, with college graduates adopting technology at much higher rates than seniors with lower levels of formal education. Read the full report here

Nevada Lifeline Verifier Contract

Effective October 1, 2017, a new law in Nevada will authorize the PUC to terminate a contract entered into with an independent administrator to certify or recertify the eligibility of customers for Lifeline service once the National Lifeline Eligibility Verifier is able to provide such service.  The law also provides the National Lifeline Eligibility Verifier access to a database created and maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services for the exclusive purpose of determining or verifying the status of an eligible customer.

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The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.