In the fourth week of its COVID-19 Internet Dashboard, NCTA-the Internet & Television Association said that peak broadband growth, both downstream and up, has plateaued. While it concedes some variation in "certain states and regions," it said the major takeaway is that broadband networks are more than capable of handling the pandemic-spurred traffic load, which it said is thanks to all that billions of dollars of infrastructure and technology investment. Downstream traffic growth has declined by 2.2% since the week of March 28 - April 4, while upstream traffic since April 4 has been up less than 1% week-to-week. Since March 1, national upstream peak traffic is up 35%, while downstream peak traffic is up 17.8%.

Angelina Panettieri, the legislative manager for information technology and communications with the National League of Cities, is involved with efforts to connect cities with each other so they can share lessons learned during the crisis, and she, too, pointed to digital inclusion as one of the more pressing matters currently facing local leadership. It’s a challenge that faces both the public and private sector as well as city hall itself — how can organizations get devices into people’s hands so they can conduct all their business online? “What might have been a three- or five-year timeline has now been pushed into three weeks,” Panettieri said of the rapid acceleration of need. To this end, there are several communities across the country that have converted unused school buses into Wi-Fi hot spots, so users in need can park beside them and get online from portable devices in their cars. While this works in the short term, the cost and logistical hassle of the connections hardly make it an endgame solution. “That’s happening because we have fallen down on the job as a country,” she said, “because we have failed at providing adequate broadband infrastructure at a price where people can afford it. That’s happening because we messed up.”

Those of us who are able to work from home are only able to do so because we have three things — a working computer, broadband access and the technical skills needed to use our devices. But the people who live on the other side of the digital divide — most of whom are people of color, many of whom are people in their 40s, 50s and 60s — can’t work from home. The digital divide has always disproportionately impacted the same communities that have always been left behind in the US. That’s not new. But what we’re also seeing now is that those of us with access to technology can be safe(r) and earn a livelihood. Those without access cannot. And it’s not a mistake or a coincidence that they are largely Black and Brown. We can all do something to make a difference so that we can become a more equal society on the other side of this. Here are some ideas:

• Donate to nonprofits focused on bridging the digital divide for communities of color.
• Consider donating gently used (i.e. something you would still be happy to use) laptops to nonprofits that are providing devices to communities in need.
• Write to your elected representatives and local government officials and urge them to support funding for digital inclusion.
• Talk to your friends about these issues. Bring up the fact that there are millions of people in our country who are forced to put their lives at risk because they can’t work from home.

[Elizabeth Lindsey is CEO of Byte Back]

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Mountain Rural Telephone, Peoples Rural Telephone (PRTC), and Thacker-Grigsby Telephone are providing free hotspots for families that do not have broadband at home. The hotspots are primarily for school, community college, and GED students to complete their nontraditional instruction while face-to-face instruction is on hold. But the hotspots are available to anyone. Each of these telecommunications companies began business over 50 years ago, bringing much-needed telephone service to these remote, sparsely populated areas with descriptive names such as Possum Trot, Hard Shell, and Wheel Rim.  Mountain Rural and Peoples Rural Telephone (PRTC) are cooperatives, and Thacker-Grigsby is privately owned.

5G could help solve the last-mile problem by bringing high-speed internet from the fiber backbone to the home. This hybrid solution could be a more realistic approach to connecting some areas of the country. However, the effort might still remain financially prohibitive for some providers, which might result in the need for the government to step in and subsidize part of the effort.

Looking at the driverless cars and smart cities of the future, it’s clear to me that connectivity will one day be seen as no less a necessity than gas, electricity, and water. But why wait until then? If a human right like education is denied because of a lack of connectivity, we should treat it as a vital utility today.

[Carolina Milanesi is principal analyst at Creative Strategies and founder of The Heart of Tech, a tech consultancy focused on education and diversity.]

Despite promises of help, families in the low-income neighborhoods of Watts, Boyle Heights and South Los Angeles have struggled to get online, with at least 16% of students lacking basic internet access, according to a survey of public school families in those communities released by the nonprofit Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. Many more students likely lack the high-speed internet connection needed for regular online academic work, according to the organization, which manages 18 L.A. Unified campuses that enroll large numbers of black and Latino students who are members of low-income families. The survey, conducted March 24 through April 4, also recorded other areas of concern: 15% of families reported that students had not yet been in contact with teachers, and 25% said students needed to print out materials at home for their assignments, but they lacked a printer. Companies represented in the survey — AT&T, Charter Spectrum, T-Mobile and Verizon — defended their efforts, saying they moved to offer their services during this time of school closures to help the families of low-income students. They explained that coverage limitations are based on geography or other factors, and noted that customers can cancel in order to avoid monthly fees after their free service expires.

As the coronavirus crisis forces schools across the country to grapple with the challenges of providing remote learning, many schools and districts have had to get creative with low-tech forms of instruction and delivery that don’t require internet connections or digital devices. In Arkansas, where 23 percent of households lack internet service, and schools will be shut for the remainder of the school year, the local PBS affiliate is now providing daily television programming tied to the state’s distance learning curriculum. They got the idea from a similar arrangement that the Los Angeles Unified School District made with its own local PBS stations back in mid-March. The result is five hours of weekday programming for pre-K to eighth grade students, available to any household with a TV, hosted by a roster of Arkansas educators, all former state teachers of the year. 

Ligado Networks LLC overcame powerful opposition to its proposed broadband network with some help from inside-the-Beltway figures close to President Donald Trump’s White House. The Reston (VA)-based company prevailed with a costly persuasion campaign overseen by a blue-chip roster of lobbyists and board members. Since emerging from bankruptcy in 2016, Ligado has spent about $7.9 million on lobbying, including more than $2.5 million during 2019. During the first quarter of 2020 alone, Ligado spent $730,000 on its advocacy, a 20% increase over the previous three-month period. Ligado cast its service as a fit with the Trump administration’s push for deploying fast, advanced 5G service -- and doing so ahead of China.