Broadband for All Starts With More Public Wi-Fi

[Commentary] The 21st-century equivalent of Herbert Hoover’s chicken-in-every-pot promise is a faster Internet connection in every home. It’s a laudable but, for now, elusive goal. While working to reach it, however, the next president -- whether that’s Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, both of whom have promised far greater investment in public infrastructure -- must attain a more immediate objective: finishing the Obama Administration’s work of connecting so-called anchor institutions across the nation.

Stories of public school students congregating outside schools or libraries so they can use their public Wi-Fi networks to do homework are stirring evidence of the digital divide. Addressing this inequity will require a broader definition of “anchor institutions,” which include not just libraries but public-transit systems and parks. Public Wi-Fi needn’t be confined by roofs or walls. Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission must conduct yearly reviews of whether advanced telecommunications capability “is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion,” and take “immediate action” if it is not. When it comes to anchor institutions, and consumers who have nowhere else to turn for vital access, “immediate action” remains overdue.