Colorado's Broadband Internet Doesn't Have to Be Rocky

from the one-size-fits-all-doesn't-work dept

It's 2020. The Internet should be reliable and powerful regardless of where you live, but that's not the case for millions of Americans. In many ways, Coloradans represent a microcosm of the demographic diversity across the country, with groups from farmers to business owners, students and young professionals. This makes the job of a regional service provider like us challenging.

And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic threw the country into disarray.

In the rural Colorado communities we serve, many of our customers were content with a stable connection that enabled them to browse, stream their favorite shows and occasionally check work email from home. That quickly changed eight months ago when some broadband luxuries became necessities.

This story isn't uniquely ours, though, as rural providers around the country that work with communities—historical or not—face similar challenges.

Since our founding in 1990, Jade Communications has worked with mayors of some of America's oldest towns to ensure that their history remained intact, but that their citizens weren't left behind by obsolete technology. What we see and hear from bigger internet providers is a one-size-fits-all approach. That would never work in San Luis, Colorado, the oldest town in the state, or most rural communities we serve.

We have built an understanding of the 30 communities we serve in Southern Colorado and quickly realized that while the services we provided were far better than average, residents weren't used to working and learning remotely.

Instead of catastrophe, we found a solution.

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March, we offered all subscribers: free installation, a complimentary speed tier upgrade, and a premium Wi-Fi upgrade—all at no cost for 60 days. After the complimentary period, 62 percent of those who had upgraded a service tier opted to keep it.

Pre-pandemic internet speeds were no longer fruitful for our communities. Most people weren't used to their kids being at home or running their business from their kitchen tables. Our doubling (and, in some instances, tripling) of bandwidth was critical to ensuring people could comfortably work and learn from home. We also offered them the ability to increase/decrease speeds to certain devices (or limit access for apps like TikTok on children's devices during certain times of day) via our app. Following our conversations with seven different school districts across the San Luis Valley, we've connected more than 100 students and are still working with these districts to get even more of their most remote students connected.

Together with our sister company, Blanca Networks, we signed the Federal Communications Commission's "Keep Americans Connected Pledge." We are the first and only providers in the San Luis Valley to sign the pledge. Along with the other 390 U.S.-based broadband companies and associations that have signed it, we promised to continue to work with customers disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

But there's more work to do. While we're proud our customers rarely face issues we can't support, much of Colorado is playing catch up. According to local election results in 2018, access to high-speed internet was one of the top list of issues rural voters cared about. This isn't a sentiment unique to Colorado. According to a Pew Research Center survey, about six in ten Americans in rural communities (58 percent) believe access to high speed internet is a problem in their area. While we work in various parts of Southern Colorado, the majority of the 30 communities are rural towns.

We're at a turning point for Colorado and other states in the U.S. where we see an increase in urban flight. Professionals are moving from expensive cities like Denver to rural mountain towns to save money and enjoy the recreational benefits. But many of these new homes aren't well-equipped for professional needs. While the views might be nice, the technology and broadband options are virtually archaic. The same broadband speeds in urban cities must be available to those in rural towns in order to support this new lifestyle and the ability to work from anywhere.

So how does Colorado find its solution? Is something like fiber the answer? Yes, but it is only part of the equation. Though many may claim that technology behind broadband will save us, the digital divide won't be solved by technology alone. Even prior to the pandemic, we built our business on relationships first, our solutions enabled by technology, education and understanding what leaders in rural communities were looking for.

We believe that technology will enable the solution, but it will take people understanding and learning how, in this case, broadband, can support the economic vitality of their towns, cities and people. We've always been a proponent of fiber broadband as a possible end to the digital divide, but it won't happen overnight or without a thorough understanding of the communities we serve.

The pandemic has impacted our lives in innumerable ways, but it has become clear is that connection matters now more than ever before. Rural and regional CSPs like Jade are putting in the work today so that the future can be a bit brighter—and more connected—as our world changes. Without proper and reliable internet, millions of Americans have suffered from feeling disconnected and left behind. It's always been a problem. It has just taken a pandemic for Americans to wake up and start looking for a solution.

Jordan Wehe is the Director of Marketing at locally-owned Colorado-based broadband provider Jade Communications

Filed Under: broadband, colorado, digital divide, rural broadband
Companies: jade communications

The Trump FCC Has Failed To Protect Low-Income Americans During A Health Crisis

from the moral-imperative dept

As America struggles with a deadly and historic health crisis, millions of Americans risk getting kicked offline due to economic hardship. At a time when stable access to power, broadband, and water are essential for survival, government agencies tasked with representing and defending the public welfare have been asleep at the wheel.

Millions of Americans risk losing access to essential utilities as overdue bills pile up thanks to the COVID-19 crisis. With only 21 states prohibiting utilities from disconnecting impacted users, roughly 179 million Americans risk losing these essential lifelines as bills pile up and their economic woes accelerate.

It’s a problem that extends to broadband connectivity. Data suggests Americans pay some of the highest prices in the developed world for broadband. The pandemic has exacerbated the problem, forcing countless students and teleworkers to huddle around fast food restaurants because broadband isn’t available, or isn’t affordable, in their neighborhood.

While millions of Americans face a mountain of growing utility bills — they’ve seen little help from the federal government.

Back in March the Trump FCC announced with great flourish that it had solved the problem with its “Keep Americans Connected” pledge, an entirely voluntary agreement with broadband providers who agreed they wouldn’t impose late fees or kick users offline during the crisis - at least temporarily.

Despite signing the pledge, some of the nation’s largest ISPs proceeded to ignore it entirely, kicking struggling and some instances even disabled users offline, despite repeated assurances this wouldn’t happen. There was little effort by the FCC to confirm ISPs were living up to the pledge or other pandemic-related promises, such as making Wi-Fi hotspots available to the public, suspending arbitrary bandwidth usage caps and overage fees, and creating or expanding low-cost broadband offerings for low-income Americans.

Despite an accelerating pandemic, the hollow pledge came and went quickly, expiring quietly at the end of June with little fanfare and no substantive FCC action. When pressured by Congress as to why the agency hadn’t done more, the agency punted the problem back to Congress, stating it could only act if lawmakers gave broadband providers more money.

So what were the results of the Keep America Connected pledge and the other promises ISPs made to address the pandemic? Nobody knows. The FCC doesn’t bother to collect data on how many broadband subscribers have been kicked offline during the pandemic due to non-payment. It doesn’t have a clue how many Americans have been disconnected as they face economic collapse, and there’s little to no indication that the agency under Trump has any intention of learning.

Nor does the FCC know whether any of the promised low-cost broadband offerings have made a dent in the tens of millions of Americans who lack broadband either because they can’t afford it, or because they don’t have access to a broadband network at all.

To make matters worse, the Trump FCC has eliminated FCC legal authority over broadband providers and popular consumer protections that would have protected U.S. consumers from bogus fees, surprise surcharges, and predatory behavior during the crisis. Without legal authority over broadband providers, the agency can’t hold any of those companies to their promises — they can simply walk away without penalty. Many already have.

Pinky swears simply aren't adequate to ensure that struggling Americans can work, learn, have access to health care, and communicate during an historic crisis.

The Communications Act of 1934 gives the FCC ample flexibility to ensure the public is protected during a national emergency. But when it comes to broadband internet access, this FCC is powerless by choice, leaving consumers crippled by debt facing the loss of essential services.

The Biden FCC must make restoring the FCC’s authority over broadband providers its first priority. It is essential to ensuring that all Americans remain connected during this crisis and the inevitable crises to come. It is also essential to protect consumers from price gouging, account termination, privacy violations and unfair market practices.

The next FCC must also collect more accurate data about who does and doesn’t have broadband and why they don’t have it. The FCC’s current data grossly overstates the number of Americans who have access to broadband and doesn’t take into account the principal reason many don’t adopt broadband - cost. When the broadband industry makes promises to protect consumers and close the digital divide, the impact should be documented and made public.

Press releases and promises won’t close the digital divide - effective policies and strong oversight will. The American people deserve an FCC that’s committed to ensuring that everyone has access to affordable and robust broadband.

Gigi Sohn is a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy and a Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate. She served as Counselor to Former FCC Chairman from November 2013-December 2016.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, covid, covid-19, digital divide, fcc

10 Years Of U.S. Broadband Policy Has Been A Colossal Failure

from the can't-fix-what-you-don't-understand dept

November 18^th, 2020 marked 3900 days since the Federal Communications Commission launched its heavily-hyped "National Broadband Plan." 400 days ago, I penned an op-ed for the Benton Foundation which assessed how the FCC had been unable to achieve any of the benchmarks or meet any of the six stated goals of the plan. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that another year didn’t fix very much of the shortcomings I identified then.

Nominally, the U.S. National Broadband Plan was designed to run for 10 years. The mandates expired, unfulfilled, back in mid-March, just as the Covid-19 Pandemic was beginning. Now, eight months later, concerns over the digital divide have only grown louder, while the FCC commissioners crow about statistics on broadband deployment and hand out additional subsidies for telehealth.

While the National Broadband’s Plan included a goal for universal access, (Goal 3: “Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.”) the FCC employs creative math to cover up the fact that 10 years of broadband policy has been a colossal failure.

As 2020 has unfolded, the agency continues to tout anecdotal successes in broadband “growth” using measurements of the subsidies being handed out to connect homes left behind by the FCC’s economic centric theories of regulatory implementation. Just over a month ago, Commissioner Carr went on the road to tout a subsidy for rural broadband in Pennsylvania to the tune of $690 Million dollars:

While anything that actually solves the gaps in broadband coverage that have resulted from the FCC’s negligent policy approach over the last decade is good, and even setting aside the potentially partisan electoral implications of handing out this subsidy in a critical battleground state just weeks before the Presidential election, the lack of scrutiny given to these routine subsidy announcements can be found in the cost. In this recent example, $690 Million to hook up 190 thousand new customers breaks down to a real bargain, at a mere cost of $3631 per household.

At that inflated price point, a subsidy to connect the roughly 125 Million homes in the country to broadband would have cost a bit North of $4.5 trillion.

Yet, even in the face of these targeted subsidies, we continue to see a large gap in access to broadband in many places in the U.S. Despite the fact the FCC adopted a slower broadband speed definition of 25 Mbps downstream, 3 Mbps upstream, when it was clear the 100 Mbps downstream, 50 Mbps upstream target for 100 Million Homes in the National Broadband Plan could not be met. So not only has the FCC missed it targets for access, it even had to reduce what counted as access to get to the numbers it is now routinely writing press releases about.

To be fair, the FCC is correct when it says that the fact that only 14.5 Million people remain without access to broadband is an improvement (though third party organizations estimate this is a massive underestimate), but that’s like a football team who is being shut-out while down by four touchdowns late in the game takes time to celebrate that meaningless field goal they just kicked. It is an improvement, sure, but nowhere close to getting the job done, and frankly on broadband deployment we should be well past the end of the game.

While we can debate metrics when assessing successes and failures of the FCC’s policymaking, the events of the last eight months have put a spotlight on how important the FCC’s failure to achieve its goals has been. As millions of Americans were forced to go virtual for work and school the clear requirement for affordable universal broadband access has never been clearer.

Gaps in coverage and the cost of broadband have put kids in parking lots outside of fast food places so they can do their school work on open Wi-Fi because the availability of broadband in an area does not guarantee one’s actually ability to access it. Broadband is expensive, and even in the areas where broadband is widely available, people suffering the economic strains of the last eight months may not have the resources to have broadband at home. So, at the same time we’re handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to cover up a problem that was supposed to be fixed already, we’re leaving even more people on the wrong side of the digital divide. Unfortunately, the current leadership of the FCC seems more interested in trying to invent ways to regulate internet speech that they object to.

With the indications that COVID-19 is going to be sticking around like an unwanted houseguest, the new incoming leadership at the FCC has to redouble the efforts to cover the gaps in the broadband maps. Universal access to broadband was not an unreasonable goal, and the FCC has had more than 10 years to make it happen. Kids on the wrong side of the divide have found ways to get their homework in on time, maybe we should hold the FCC to the same standard?

Christopher Terry spent 15 years as a producer in broadcast radio and six years as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before becoming an assistant professor of Media Law at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research includes policy, regulatory and legal analysis of media ownership, media content and political advertising.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband plan, covid-19, digital divide, fcc, national broadband plan, subsidies

Digital Redlining: ISPs Widening The Digital Divide

from the mind-the-gap dept

As school districts are facing the new school year under conditions drastically changed by COVID-19, the digital divide is deepening education inequality in the US.

Many families struggle to meet the requirements of remote schooling as millions of students around the US lack access to a broadband internet connection. We’ve learned in pandemic times that our health depends on those of others and we are only as strong as our weakest links. Still, inequalities arising from the lack of internet and technological access mean that online learning poses insurmountable challenges to many households worldwide, leaving many children behind.

Rachel Cooper, a teacher in rural Sacramento Valley reported to the Atlantic, “It’s rough, some kids are using their phones to log into class, but the screens are too small to do work on. Some kids’ internet cuts out in the middle of class, and others don’t log on at all. I’ve had several students already say that they were really nervous they were going to fall farther behind in a specific subject because they think distance learning is going to be really difficult.”

Many Households Left Behind

While the US is considered to be at the forefront of technological innovation, the Federal Communications Commission estimated that 21 million Americans lack a high-speed internet connection. In fact, researchers at Broadband Now found that the actual number is double the FCC’s figure. The disparity in the FCC’s numbers is a direct result of relying on internet service providers (ISPs) to self-report. This allows providers to claim they serve the population of an entire block even if they serve just one household on that block.

The right to internet access was historically never prioritized by the US government, and was mostly left to be managed by private ISPs. ISPs gained even more freedom under the Trump administration, when federal regulation got looser. In 2017, net neutrality regulations were abolished, allowing broadband companies to decide where to build out their infrastructure and how much to charge for their services. This was the reversal of the 2015 decision by the Obama administration to have stronger oversight over ISPs and it generally reflected the Trump administration’s view that regulation by the market will lead to better results and yield more innovation.

This decision, however, largely led to systemic issues like digital redlining, a practice of creating and perpetuating inequities between already marginalized groups specifically through the use of digital technologies. An example of digital redlining is when ISPs deliberately won’t serve certain geographical areas and low-income neighborhoods because they are not considered profitable.

“Unlike rural areas, where providers receive a subsidy to serve a high-cost area, no subsidies exist to encourage providers to serve or upgrade urban neighborhoods despite the perceived lack of profit,” Gene Kimmelman, senior advisor at the think tank Public Knowledge testified. “Either we should build new programs explicitly designed to create competing providers in these underserved neighborhoods or legislation should require universal service standards or other anti-redlining measures enforced at either the state level or by the FCC.”

Some of the unconnected families live in areas that are not serviced by providers, but others simply can’t afford to pay for an internet connection. The average cost of internet service in the United States is about $68 per month (compared to Europe’s average of $44) which is simply a cost that not all households can bear.

Short-term Solutions for Bridging the Gap

At the advent of COVID-19 and remote schooling, many school districts organized Wi-Fi-equipped buses to drive around areas where disconnected students live. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Public Schools with the help of the City of Albuquerque were providing “drive-up mobile Wi-Fi units at a number of APS schools and other public locations.” These drive-up mobile units were usable up to a 100 feet radius, which meant that internet users could remain in their cars to aid social distancing.

Some school districts have also tried to subsidize Internet access for disconnected students, often with funds from the government's $2.2 trillion coronavirus aid package under the CARES Act. Additionally, many school districts have purchased and distributed 4G wireless hotspots or paid for discounted wired Internet services for low-income families, such as Comcast's $9.95 per month Internet Essentials package, which now connects approximately 200,000 students. However, these efforts are mostly initiated by school districts and ISPs “free” offers are usually limited and capped, thus sub-par to the realistic broadband needs of students learning online.

In Need of Long-term Regulation

These measures taken by school districts are good short-term fixes, they will not solve the digital divide for the future when online schooling will be a common practice.

Long-term solutions need federal or municipal investments and have to come from non-commercial efforts. For example, Congress could encourage municipal broadband to intervene where private companies do not see worthwhile business opportunities. However, competition between ISPs and municipal broadband networks is limited by state law in more than half of US states, and municipal broadband can not be set up in areas that are already served by one private ISP.

This means that many communities are left with ISPs that provide poor quality and expensive services because of the lack of competition, and are unable to pursue municipal broadband because their area is considered “served”. Some states also require municipal broadband services to match prices of the local ISP, further limiting competition for private providers.

Global Outlook

According to a new UNICEF report, 463 million children globally were unable to access remote learning when schools closed due to COVID-19. The report highlights significant inequality across regions: sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected, where at least half of all students cannot be reached with remote learning.

The governments of South Korea and Sweden are building national broadband infrastructures and letting ISPs use them. In the US, essential services like broadband connections are left to be managed by private ISPs, leading to whole areas and neighborhoods with no or poor internet connection. What will be the long-term systemic consequences of children in rural and low-income households struggling to keep up with online curricula?

Andrea Kelemen is a Berlin-based writer and content strategist exploring topics related to technology ethics and the cultural effects of digital media for FairShake. IRL, she likes swimming, dancing and deconstructing objectifying dualisms with both human and non-human agents.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, digital divide, redlinining

We Do Not Have the Internet We Deserve

from the a-better-future dept

Nothing that currently exists can compete with fiber. Nothing replicates the future growth fiber networks will deliver, simply because nothing that moves data has the inherent capacity of a fiber wire. It isn’t even close by any technical measurement. However, barely 30 percent of Americans have access to fiber infrastructure, despite the fact that 100 percent of Americans have become dependent on high-speed access during the pandemic.

In a few short years, more than one billion fiber-to-the-home gigabit Internet connections will have been deployed in Asia. That fiber infrastructure will be capable of reaching symmetrical ten gigabits, 100 gigabits, and well into the terabit era of broadband access in a cost-effective basis as applications and services continue to evolve and advance. Deployment at a large scale is possible, but the U.S. still lags far behind.

Here is how bad our high-speed access market is today: every big American ISP has stopped deploying fiber services at any serious scale. This leaves a vast majority of Americans stuck with inferior cable Internet service. When you factor in the monopoly power held by the ISPs—preventing Americans from switching to better service—it becomes a perfect storm. That storm broke with the pandemic, where we all suddenly found ourselves needing quick and reliable Internet access.

Only small private and local public providers are connecting folks to the future, but their efforts are stymied by incumbents and not sufficiently supported. That means most people can’t switch from cable when they opt to throttle uploads or are unable to deliver the speeds they’ve advertised if we all use the Internet at the same time. You still have landlords getting away with keeping fiber competitors out of apartment complexes in exchange for a kick back from companies like Comcast.

The remaining Americans who don’t even have access to cable are dependent on obsolete copper lines for communications held by companies like the now-bankrupt Frontier Communications and AT&T. In Frontier’s case, their overreliance on its slow Internet monopoly led to their downfall as they systemically avoided the necessary investments needed to transition to fiber leaving countless rural communities in dire straits. As for AT&T, they are trying to figure out how to cut people off the copper network and just give them cell phones to make more money with a less reliable connection. And the wireless industry spent precious years hyping 5G at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress only to now come to admit that 5G everywhere does not happen without dense fiber networks everywhere.

Now the good news: this is all fixable. If we change our telecom policies and how we invest in telecom infrastructure, fiber to the home (FTTH) is already economically feasible in a super-majority of communities if the right policies and government efforts are in place. A recent study by the Fiber Broadband Association found that FTTH is commercially feasible up to the 90th percentile of population density. For the remaining 10 percent, the Americans in the most rural of territories, we are seeing successful models led by the public sector such as rural cooperatives on long-term capital investments in FTTH.

For example, a rural cooperative in Missouri today can deliver gigabit service at $100 a month at a population density of 2.4 people per square mile. The demand is there but it is being suppressed by the slow Internet monopolists through bans on local governments building fiber and incumbent industry efforts to have the FCC hinder competition. If we break down the barriers that are suppressing the parties most ready to deploy fiber, 21st century infrastructure will come.

First, if the large private ISP model has failed (and it has), we need to start exploring our alternatives. One such alternative is simply having the government build the infrastructure and make it open to all comers. This “open access fiber” approach, fiber that is available on a shared infrastructure, is starting to take off. Utah’s “Utopia” network is leading the way, connecting more and more households in the area to an expanding open-access fiber network run by local cities. Residents within Utopia’s service area enjoy 11 private options for gigabit service, compared to whatever the majority of Americans have one or two high-speed services.

This type of approach to broadband infrastructure, where the government builds the wires and shares its capacity to broadband providers, holds tremendous promise. In essence, the government builds the roads and allows commerce to follow. One study predicts a structurally separated network deployment could connect rural homes to fiber without subsidies and through long term low-interest financing.

Other shared approaches are bearing fruit. In Alabama, the state legislature passed a law clarifying that electric utilities could leverage their easements and private rights-of-way to enable telecommunications services over their fiber assets. In response, Mississippi’s C Spire arranged an exclusivity agreement with Alabama Power in exchange for deploying fiber to the home to communities throughout the state through the utilities network. The exclusivity gave C Spire the confidence that their investments in the utility’s fiber network to make it broadband-ready could be recovered from newly connected customers, while Alabama Power was assured that C Spire would try to attract as many customers as possible to provide a stable and growing revenue base to the electric utility, resulting in lower rates. Joint ventures that leverage interdependent needs for fiber can help make more markets accessible because the demand is already there.

Lastly, the only way we are going to get everyone connected to 21st century ready access is the same way we did it with the roads, electricity, and water: the government needs to lead. Internet access needs to be part of its infrastructure policy, especially light of the private sector failing to deliver to all people.

Estimates are that nearly $100 billion is needed to deliver 100 percent coverage with FTTH in America, with the majority of that cost being associated with the most rural parts of America. That sounds like a lot, but here is the important thing to know about fiber: once you lay that line, you are done building broadband infrastructure for potentially 70 years or more. To put that in context, the publicly available commercial Internet hasn’t even existed for 70 years. All of the advancements in speed and capacity (that will far exceed satellite, cable, and wireless) will come from inexpensive hardware upgrades, not high cost labor and construction work. This is why countries like China are aggressively building fiber infrastructure at a rate nine times faster than the United States.

This reality has prompted Rep. James Clyburn to draft legislation to create an American universal fiber program. It has already passed the House, and now we must force the Senate to understand the breadth of this problem and simplicity of this solution. If we can get an electric line to everyone, we can get a fiber line there too.

The bill emphasizes open-access fiber networks that would replicate the success demonstrated by Utah’s local governments. Building these types of networks would shatter the nearly 15-year decline into the giant monopolies or duopolies that most Americans experience when trying to get high-speed Internet access. Instead, you could get Internet access from your local businesses, non-profits, and even your local schools and libraries.

The bill will also free up local governments and cooperatives to pursue community broadband. The removal of state laws advocated by the major national ISPs that ban local communities from building their own broadband access network is long overdue. The local public sector has proven to be an essential part of the solution to reach universal fiber as rural cooperatives, small cities, and townships are building fiber networks in areas long ago skipped by the private sector.

The bill also fixes a small-seeming, large-impact, and long-standing problem of Internet access in the United States by updating what we mean by broadband. Today’s federal definition of broadband was established in 2015 and stands at 25 megabits per second download and 3 megabits per second upload. This 25/3 standard makes it appear as if there are more broadband options than there truly are, hiding the monopoly. In other words, it is both useless and harmful. To fix this, the bill would establish that communities lacking 25/25 broadband are “unserved” and establish a minimum standard of 100/100 megabits per second for federally funded projects. These higher metrics would avoid wasting money on legacy networks that are unable to deliver relevant speeds and focus on future proof networks that have fiber at their core.

We have to fix our Internet, and soon.

The pandemic has not resulted in as much of an explosion of Internet usage as it has a bump in usage that is within normal parameters of what was coming—that is, pandemic usage is roughly in sync with projections for Internet usage in around 2022. The future, as they say, is now.

If your Internet access is failing you now, you have just been given a sneak peek of what 2022 looks like for your home. Broadband consumption has been on the rise as long as we’ve tracked it, and as the billion gigabit fiber connections are activated globally, the applications and services that use that capacity will come to market. If the United States government, the states, and the local governments do not actively tackle this infrastructure problem soon, we will just be unable to access the latest advancements. Not only that, but our economic competitiveness will decline as China continues to rise and the 21st century technology industries will begin to find their homes where the infrastructure is available. The next Silicon Valley may not be in America if we continue on this trajectory.

We will also start to see the creation of a new type of digital divide where Americans live with either 1st class or 2nd class Internet. Fibered networks are getting cheaper to operate yet are delivering larger amounts of data while legacy networks are quickly getting more expensive to maintain. That means low income neighborhoods and rural areas stuck on the legacy 20th century network are going to pay more for less, while high-income users connected to fiber will enjoy the benefits of lower prices. Efforts to subsidize access to the Internet for low income people will become more and more difficult on decaying lines, while free Internet zones will become more normalized in wealthy communities as the costs continue to decline on fiber.

None of this is set in stone. We have the market we choose and if we start making the right choices soon, we can solve these problems. But that takes everyone collectively demanding more from our policy makers and the industry and adopting a new approach.

Ernesto Falcon is Senior Legislative Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation with a primary focus on intellectual property, open Internet issues, broadband access, and competition policy.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, covid-19, digital divide, fiber, infrastructure, open internet

In New York City, We've Taken The Digital Divide Into Our Own Hands During Covid

from the if-you-want-something-done-right dept

Broadband is in a state of disarray in America. This was the case long before COVID-19 brought the world to its knees earlier this year. Roughly a third of Americans have no access to broadband internet, with the majority stating cost as the most important obstacle. Even in highly connected urban areas, such as New York City, a lack of connectivity impacts millions of residents. According to Mayor de Blasio’s Internet Master Plan, 40% of New Yorkers lack access to home or mobile broadband, including roughly 20% who lack access to both.

Many of these internet black out zones are in low income and minority communities. As the coronavirus pandemic set in, internet accessibility became more crucial than ever. However, as schools transitioned to online learning, many children were unable to participate – and continue to face the same challenge today, months later. Our community at NYC Mesh is fighting to bring digital equity to all communities of NY, and our solution is simple: provide internet to everyone. As COVID makes our society ever more digital, I believe our solution provides a meaningful model for how grassroots movements can shape the connectivity landscape.

At NYC Mesh we are developing strategies to improve internet accessibility, by creating an open Wi-Fi wireless and fiber network in three boroughs – and more to come. Since NYC Mesh was founded in 2014, it has nearly doubled in size every year. However, like many other organizations, COVID took a toll on our ability to expand the network and service members.

At the beginning of the year, NYC Mesh had about 500 successful nodes on the network – rooftop antennas connecting residents online and further expanding the reach of our community infrastructure in the city. The network was blanketing lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, with plans to begin connecting residents in Queens. Community meetings were filling rooms and teams of volunteers were at the ready to carry out seven installs a week, update our supporting webpage, participate in hackathons, perform maintenance and keep the network running, or any other of the many tasks involved in bridging community organizing and connectivity.

As with the rest of New York, COVID forced NYC Mesh to adapt, and quickly. We did so by acting locally: the weeks before New York’s shelter in place order entered into effect, volunteers attempted to connect immediate neighbors, anyone in walking distance that we could connect. Ultimately, however, COVID forced the organization to limit its work to only emergency maintenance or circumstances when a new member had no other means to get online.

Despite these limitations there were other ways we could help. NYC Mesh operates almost entirely on the suggested contributions of its members. We don’t speak the language of “service cutoffs,” billing, fees, or other creations of for-profit ISPs. When members of our community lost a job or simply had to prioritize other expenses in their life, they could rest assured that they wouldn’t lose their connection online. Of course, as with groups across the nation, our monthly community meetings transitioned online; PPE became a requirement for all in-person site visits and installations; and we added digital training videos and maintained an extensive online doc to help educate our new members.

We started taking in requests for new installations again in June and the number of install requests have once again reached about seven a week. While some of our regular volunteers have had to step back as a result of the COVID shutdown, new volunteers have stepped forward, who have brought with them amazing contributions to help continue the expansion of the Mesh. While COVID may have slowed down NYC Mesh’s operations, we still continue to pursue our goal of bringing digital equity to all New Yorkers.

Digital learning was an integral part of education long before the coronavirus and its importance is only increasing. As the need for broadband access rises, the gap in internet access has become more evident, and the consequences more severe. Coronavirus provided the perfect example of how the lack of broadband access can put many, especially children at risk. Children, especially children of color, are receiving less days of instructed learning than their more privileged peers. Prior to COVID, a child could go to an after-school program or library to get online. Now, most of these facilities are closed, limiting the options of those without internet at home to receive an education.

NYC Mesh is here to organize, empower, and connect, which is why we’re partnering with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to expand the mesh network into public housing and enable free, fair, and community-based internet access to residents. The people of these communities face many obstacles, a lack of broadband access being one of the most severe yet overlooked. Having access to the internet at home means it will be easier for residents to apply for jobs online, work remotely, and access safety net benefits. Most importantly, it allows children to receive a full education during this pandemic. With this partnership, some of the most vulnerable members of our population will gain access to the internet, bringing us one step closer to digital equity for all New Yorkers.

As we face yet another potential wave of COVID, it is clear that digital equity must be the goal in order to ensure that all New Yorkers can be successful. Employment opportunities, safety net access, and education, will increasingly become dependent on having internet access. Without stable broadband access, the gap between rich and poor widens, and the circle of poverty will continue for the next generation of children of color. Thanks to the efforts of NYC Mesh and other community-run and community-first organizations who have stepped up to tackle this challenge like Silicon Harlem or The Point, we are closer to bringing digital equity to the City of New York and ensuring that no child receives a lesser education, because of their parents' inability to pay a monthly internet bill.

Terique Boyce is an organizer with NYC Mesh and resident of NYCHA housing. He works towards achieving greater representation of people of color in the tech industry and bridging the digital divide in NYC.

Filed Under: broadband, covid-19, digital divide, internet connectivity, mesh, mesh networks, nyc, nycha
Companies: nyc mesh