Roberto Gallardo

While digital inclusion can be framed as a social justice and equity issue, it can—and should—also be framed as a community and economic development issue. A digitally inclusive community or region ensures that all residents, organizations, and businesses can participate fully in an increasingly digitized community, society, and economy. This report will review a series of 2019 metrics to get a better idea of the state of digital inclusion in Indiana.

This paper introduces the concept of digital parity – similar levels of connectivity, devices, and skills between groups – that can lead to more digital inclusive communities. Utilizing a household survey measuring digital inclusiveness and analysis of variance (ANOVA), findings suggest that there are different levels of digital inclusiveness between groups. Differences in internet use and benefits are larger between younger and older groups. There are also differences between urban and rural areas.

We use a county-level panel dataset from 2012 to 2018 to assess the impacts of various state policies on total and rural broadband availability in the US. The primary dependent variable is the percentage of residents with access to 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload speeds via a fixed connection, with alternative specifications considering other aspects of availability such as technology type and competition. We control for the main determinants of Internet availability such as income, education, age, and population density.

Large segments of the US workforce have shifted to remote work, but not all workers and communities are equally prepared for remote work or e-learning. Studies have found not all jobs/occupations are remote work friendly and internet access among school districts vary significantly.

• Digital deserts exist, more so in rural areas.
• The urban-rural access divide is sizeable and still persists.
• A little less than half of housing units in the country are sliced up in between either top 6 only providers or other providers only.
• The technology with the largest footprint in the nation (DSL) also has the lowest median advertised speeds pointing to a potential quality of service issue.

The Federal Communications Commission publishes a bi-annual dataset based on data submitted by internet service providers using Form 477. This dataset provides information at the Census block level, the most granular geography used by the US Census Bureau, on types of technologies available (e.g. Cable, Fixed Wireless, Fiber-optic, etc.), maximum advertised download/ upload speeds, and providers’ names among other information. However, this dataset has several limitations.

The Daily Yonder, working with the Rural Assembly, identified a dozen rural-policy advocates with firsthand knowledge about the impact of federal policy in rural communities. They asked these in-the-trenches experts to name the top policies they would like to see 2020 presidential candidates address and eventually enact. Roberto Gallardo, Assistant Director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development at Purdue University, wrote on Technology and Broadband:

Despite these limitations, the digital inclusion indicators and metrics that we have analyzed do offer some insights on the steps that leaders and practitioners should consider in their community, economic, and workforce development efforts. They include:

Digital distress is defined as census tracts that have a higher percent of homes not subscribing to the internet or subscribing only through a cellular data plan as well as a higher percent of homes with no computing devices or relying only on mobile devices, no laptops or desktops. About 8.1 percent of the upper Midwest’s population (or 4.3 million people) lived in digitally distressed areas as of 2017.

As of 2017, about 1.7 million housing units in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin did not have access to 25/3 affecting 3.5 million residents. Michigan had the highest share (25.5 percent) of housing units in the region with no 25/3 access, followed by Illinois (17.6 percent) and Wisconsin (17.2 percent). Minnesota had the lowest share, with less than 10 percent of the total.