Is there a "caring about broadband" divide in the US?

The Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that a majority of Americans don't think making broadband more affordable should be a "major" government priority. And the poll found that most Americans don't see lack of broadband as a "major disadvantage" in any area. Forty-three percent think it is when it comes to education and 34 percent think it hampers getting good information about health. But those percentages drop below a third for similar queries about life enrichment, access to government services, keeping up with news, and following community events.

For some folks who don't have broadband, "it's a very difficult thing to understand and obviously they think it wouldn't be useful in their life," commented Kevin Taglang of the Benton Foundation. "Obviously they're going to say, 'Why is the government pushing this thing that I think is of no value'?"

Sherwin Sly of Public Knowledge saw the problem in similar terms. "You don't know what you have until you've got it," he noted. "A person who hasn't had the experience of usable affordable connectivity isn't going to recognize its benefits." Both Sly and Joel Kelsey of Free Press pointed to skepticism in the last century about rural electrification and telephone service. "Every time the country has seen technological advancement, we've seen the same debate," Kelsey observed. "Long distance, rural electrification, even indoor plumbing. Some things just need to get built from our country to move forward. Broadband is one of them."

Indeed, for all the hoopla about "universal service" through the mid-20th century, it really wasn't until after the Second World War that residential telephone and long distance connectivity really took off in the United States. Even consumers who could afford phone connections in the 1920s sometimes declined that chance in favor of a family car, and phone subscribership dropped dramatically during the Great Depression. In that comparative context, the fact that Pew reports that a mild gain in broadband use through this punishing recession is good news. But there's definitely a divide between advocates of government-encouraged universal broadband and that big chunk of the public who haven't gotten there yet.

The "Pew report confirms what the FCC found in our broadband survey last year: there are still too many barriers to broadband adoption in America," said Jen Howard, FCC spokesperson. "That's why the National Broadband Plan lays out a strategy for improving digital literacy and ensuring that all Americans can take full advantage of the benefits of broadband. We're more committed than ever to educating Americans about the ways that broadband can improve their lives, whether that's helping them build their businesses, access education tools, enhance their health care, or communicate with their government and each other."