Thirteen years after Minnesota first established a broadband task force to study how to bring the internet to everyone within its borders, COVID-19 has not only highlighted how critical broadband is for rural communities throughout Minnesota, it’s also reinforced how difficult and expensive reaching that goal has become. The Legislature has spent more than $126 million since 2014 on a grant program to address the state’s internet disparities, but the issue has once again become a top issue for many at the Minnesota Capitol.

Increased remote work and schooling and aging or sparse internet connections are affecting rural Maine. Video calls drop or freeze. Family members find only one person at a time can use streaming applications. Mainers returning to the state to work and live are finding it a challenge with the slower internet. Faster and more reliable technologies might not be available in certain areas or are not affordable. Those stories also are resonating with lawmakers, who are increasingly hearing how internet limitations are holding back Maine’s ability to grow its economy and workforce.

Racial and ethnic minority communities that lack internet access have been left behind in the race to get a COVID-19 vaccine. We are researchers who study health disparities. We are concerned that even when vaccinations are offered in these communities, those at greatest risk for COVID-19 may be unable to obtain appointments without the help of family or friends. This includes racial and ethnic minority communities and older adults, the age group that is currently being vaccinated. Our research suggests that lack of internet access may be an important reason.

As the Arkansas General Assembly recently found in enacting SB74, “without access to voice, data, broadband, video, and wireless telecommunications services, citizens of Arkansas also lack access to healthcare services, education services, and other essential services; and that this act is immediately necessary to allow government entities to provide high quality voice, data, broadband, video, and wireless telecommunications services to their citizens.” As a result, the Arkansas Senate voted 35-0 and the House voted 94-0 to give government agencies substantial new powers to help accelerate

The coronavirus has reinforced the Internet as the fabric of modern American life, a luxury-turned-necessity for a generation now forced to work, learn and communicate primarily through the Web. But it also has laid bare the country’s inequalities — and the role Washington has played in exacerbating these long-known divides.

Cox urges the Federal Communications Commission to consider the following principles in adopting rules to effectuate the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program: (1) allow customers to apply the benefit to their existing broadband service or other broadband service of their choice; (2) maximize consumers’ opportunities to select service from the providers of their choice; and (3) provide benefit certainty for consumers and providers regarding the termination of the program. On item #2, Cox thinks the FCC should:

Millions of low-income Americans supported by the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program have come to rely on mobile wireless services to meet their expanding education, health care and public safety needs.

Students without reliable in-home internet are already at an educational deficit, and many of the remote learning tools the pandemic has ushered in are here to stay.

A recent discussion at the University of Virginia, Addressing Barriers to Equitable Distance Learning, focused on how lack of internet access affects education, but also highlighted impacts related to health care, the economy and more. In an introduction, School of Education and Human Development Dean Bob Pianta outlined a “profound digital divide” that affects communities across the US, particularly low-income areas – both rural and urban – and communities of color. “The pandemic has exposed the realities and inequities of the digital divide,” he said.

The recently enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 provides new sources of tribal broadband funding to assist in mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic which is exacerbating the digital divide across Indian Country.  With the designated funding, NTIA is in the process of developing the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) that will make grants available to eligible entities as quickly as possible.