Bringing Broadband to Digital Deserts

[Commentary] For nearly 35 years, the Benton Foundation has promoted policy solutions to make sure all Americans have equitable and affordable access to information infrastructure and to information and knowledge essential to community and individual development. Today’s priority is broadband. It has a crucial impact on the economy – creating efficiencies, improving productivity, and accelerating innovation. And it is an essential service that is for education, public health, and public safety. Some segments of the U.S. population have reached near-100 percent broadband adoption rates. For these populations, market forces have been sufficient to get us toward our goal of universal adoption. But there are nagging, persistent divides in broadband deployment and adoption – what Benton’s executive director, Adrianne Furniss, calls “digital deserts.”

To reach universal adoption and realize a truly inclusive digital society, we must understand why market forces are not enough to connect everyone and we must seek solutions that close these digital divides. To go from desert to oasis, you need water. To go from digital desert to oasis of opportunity, we need broadband. Market forces, acting almost like rain, have been sufficient for the populations that face no significant broadband barriers. But for too many areas and households, we are seeing the limits to the power of free markets to drive universal broadband deployment and adoption. That means policymakers are obligated to step in to help create policies that drive investment and encourage adoption. What we need is a little irrigation so we can start to grow digital opportunity where the rain has yet to fall.

[Fazlullah is the Director of Policy at the Benton Foundation]