Every year, BroadbandNow delves into the world of municipal broadband with a report on which states have made it illegal for towns and cities and counties to set up their own ISPs, or make it really difficult. The report for 2020, written by telecom analyst Kendra Chamberlain, has a silver lining, though.
Life has moved online during the coronavirus pandemic, and access to the internet has shone a new light on America's inequality crisis. Nearly 15% of American households do not have a home internet subscription, including dial-up, broadband or a cellular data plan, according to US Census estimates from 2018.
Nothing in US history has exposed the rural digital divide as has the COVID-19 pandemic. Too many students in rural communities are being asked to participate in “distance learning” but are being left behind because their community’s infrastructure is insufficient. Adults, too, in rural communities are struggling with access to job listings and unemployment benefit applications as these services are frequently only available online.
If California is really the global tech capital, why is it so hard for small towns there to get the internet service they need? One answer to that question is in Gonzales, a Salinas Valley settlement of 9,000. While California’s biggest cities now struggle to provide internet access for people to work and study from home, Gonzales solved that problem a few months ago. Before the pandemic hit, the town offered broadband service, free of charge, to all its residents.
The economics of rolling out connections to the most rural parts of Africa presents a hefty challenge for the hopes of many in the telemedicine world. Data compiled by M-Lab, an open source project backed by Google and various universities, shows that Madagascar is the only African country with broadband speeds anywhere close to those available in Europe and Asia, as a submarine cable lands on the island. Most other African nations rely on 3G and 4G signals, or long-distance WiFi technology Wi-Max.
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