Baltimore City has a digital divide. COVID didn’t create this; rather, our digital divide is an outgrowth of pre-existing disparities, exacerbated by a global pandemic. The result is that Black and Latinx communities in our city are disproportionately harmed by both the COVID-19 virus and the economic recession. Recovery for Baltimore will be hard; but it will be outright impossible to “Build Back Better” unless we address the racial impact of the digital divide. This is why the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) is critical. The Federal Communications Commission program provides discounted broadband and connected devices for low-income consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a part of the pandemic recovery plan, the Consolidated Appropriations Act established an Emergency Broadband Connectivity Fund of $3.2 billion in the US Treasury for the fiscal year 2021, in order to provide eligible low-income households a discount on the cost of broadband service and certain connected devices during the emergency period relating to the pandemic. The opportunity is here, and we can’t pass it by. Let’s marshal a Baltimore Digital Equity Brigade that can help to connect households to the internet, and take a first step towards statewide economic revitalization.

[Robert W. Deutsch Foundation President Jane Brown and Vice President amalia deloney]

Local digital access projects around the country stand out because they are driven by residents maximizing their own creativity, imagination, and energy to do more than just provide internet service. They are cultivating relationships to solve their own problems and more importantly promote community well-being. In the process, they are bridging the digital divide. As Congress and the Biden-Harris administration consider a bold infrastructure funding package that could make broadband more accessible and affordable, they should support these local efforts. In fact, the impetus to funding novel and community-grounded solutions to the digital divide has never been more important: digital inequities are tied to other deep-rooted structural barriers that limit fair and just opportunities for health, wealth and advancement. Without internet access, you can’t even register for a COVID vaccine. If we are to achieve digital equity and close the divide, we must let local providers in and fund them as they develop partnerships and learn with industry players and local governments.

[Greta Byrum is director of Policy for Community Tech NY and leads Digital Equity initiatives for The New School for Social Research.]

The pandemic has caused the U.S. to take seriously the question of how to make sure all residents have broadband access for remote learning, telehealth, government services, work, job training, and other activities necessary to participate fully in society. Unfortunately, the calls to define broadband as a connection offering symmetric, 100 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload bandwidth (100/100) are arbitrary, with no evidence supporting these numbers. Every application commonly used for key services, as well as popular entertainment streaming services, rely on far less than 100 Mbps. The right way to define broadband is to grade it along a continuum of factors that affect the quality users experience, similar to how the Federal Communications Commission actually already does it in its reverse auctions. If broadband is defined by having a connection of at least 100/100, then only about 42% of households has access to broadband.

The Biden administration and California attorney general’s office are now trying to hash out how to resolve lingering uncertainty about the operation of a telehealth app called VA Video Connect. The federal Veterans Affairs Department raised concerns about the app’s future because wireless carriers subsidize its data usage costs for veterans in ways that a new California net neutrality law forbids (a situation, ISPs say, that could imperil offerings beyond just California). T-Mobile said its “ability to zero-rate this application and ensure this critical service remains available is now in danger” and that it’s working “closely” with the government and VA “to do the right thing here, which is to continue to offer these needed services.” AT&T, too, said it’s still reviewing whether it can keep offering this service under California law. “This confusion and potential unintended harmful consequence is an example of the need for a rational, uniform, consumer-friendly federal regulatory framework that applies equally to all in the internet ecosystem,” AT&T added. Advocates broadly dispute the need for any of these so-called free data offerings because they say wireless giants shouldn’t cap consumers’ data at all. The AG’s office is eyeing what’s permissible now and maintains that ISPs could provide additional data to veterans to allow them to access telehealth services through the VA or other providers without cost. Expect these debates to fuel plenty of lobbying around Democrats’ likely revival of national open internet protections and how potential federal rules deal with these zero-rated services. The repealed Obama-era FCC rules had considered such instances of zero-rating on a case-by-case basis, which the telecom industry also didn’t love.