Digital Divide

About 600,000 Virginians, mostly in Southwest, Southside and the Tidewater areas, lack access to broadband. Even where some theoretically have access to it, they can’t afford it. And Virginia doesn’t currently have a plan to address affordability. “The affordability problem remains out there, and it’s significant,” Evan Feinman, the governor’s chief broadband adviser, told the Virginia Broadband Advisory Council.

To understand and quantify the pattern and magnitude of the pandemic’s effect on young students, this research brief examines the digital divide in virtual learning by analyzing survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The major findings include:

Comcast will extend its commitments to help people connect to the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic as millions continue to stay home while many workplaces and schools operate virtually. Comcast will continue to provide free Internet service for the first 60 days for new Internet Essentials customers, and free access to more than 1.5 million public Xfinity WiFi hotspots, the largest network of its kind in the country, through June 30, 2021. The announcement marks the third time Comcast has extended these commitments.

New pandemic-induced dependence on robust internet connectivity has shone a light on the stark inequities of broadband access and helped spur a new focus on addressing a long-standing question — why isn’t internet service a public utility with the same support, disbursement, and regulation afforded to other basic necessities like water, electricity and telephone service? While federal COVID-19 relief funding has helped Utah school administrators navigate some of the challenges raised by pandemic-related remote learning, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sydnee Dickson said much mor

Millions of rural Americans in 49 states and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands will gain access to high-speed Internet service through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction. Auction results show that bidders won funding to deploy high-speed broadband to over 5.2 million unserved homes and businesses, almost 99% of the locations available in the auction. Moreover, 99.7% of these locations will be receiving broadband with speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps, with an overwhelming majority (over 85%) getting gigabit-speed broadband.

Access to broadband is essential to boost telehealth, which has skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said. "Access to telemedicine and telehealth via affordable, reliable broadband is going to be extremely important to making sure that folks can safely manage their health from home," he added. "It's especially necessary, again, for our elderly members who may be on a fixed income, but also need to be able to stay safe instead of trying to get through public transportation or further risking themselves going to a physician's office.

NCTA-the Internet & Television Association President Michael Powell said that when it comes to universal broadband service, it is always hard when you get to the last portion of the population still on the other side of digital opportunity, so government needs to step up funding, including perhaps making broadband service part of the social safety net, like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

As the pandemic forces students out of school, broadband deployment programs aren't going to move fast enough to help families in immediate need of better internet access. But Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission say the incoming Biden administration could put a dent in that digital divide with one fast policy change.

Small-scale internet projects are far from perfect. They can struggle for lack of money, technology problems, or failures to get residents involved. But some people who are pushing for better and more fair online access in the United States say that small-scale internet networks, in combination with savvier government funding and policies, are part of the solution to America’s digital divide.

A new chapter in our ongoing COVID-response drama began this week when a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers unveiled a $908 billion emergency relief plan. For many vulnerable people in the U.S., the lack of affordable broadband connections continues to hinder online learning and remote work. Will Congress finally pass economic relief and target support to reduce the digital divide?