Op-Ed

There are 8 million people with blindness or low vision in the US. More than 4.23 million of them are working age, but only about half of that working-age population are employed. Employment rates for people with blindness or low vision have historically been much lower than for the general population. An overwhelming majority of jobs across all industries require digital skills.

I’m currently enrolled in one of the first bachelor’s degree programs inside California prisons. The program is offered by California State University, Los Angeles, and the laptop is one of its perks. The students in my cohort—the program’s third, but the first to receive personal laptops—were all incarcerated at very young ages and sentenced to prison terms that reflect football scores. I’ve served 17 years of a 50-year-to-life sentence, and none of us foresaw living past our 18th birthdays, let alone attending university.

Since around 2016, telecommunications companies like ViaPath and Securus (which owns JPay) have issued thousands of tablets in prisons and jails nationwide. These devices are populated with prison-approved content and can’t connect to the internet unless they are hacked and updated with software, a process otherwise known as jailbreaking, or rooting. Jailbreaking a tablet can cost up to $300, and the reasons for doing it vary.

For more than 25 years, I’ve been in prison, where TV is a staple of prison life as essential as staff and more immutable than any rehabilitative program. Cell-block televisions are equal parts library, time machine, and mecca, instructing the incarcerated in the ways of the world they aspire to return to. Traditionally, most prisons have a communal TV, though some also sell personal TV sets.

Google is on the long list of things I took for granted prior to prison. Before I was incarcerated in 2014, I used Google often, relying on the search engine to satisfy my random curiosities. When that access was suddenly cut off, I began depending on others to answer my burning questions. Prison is isolating by design, and even things like obituaries are cruelly out of reach. Prisoners' Google requests reflect the whole spectrum of ups and downs you live through in prison.

Barb Fuller is a former dental hygienist and political activist. Gary Munce is a musician and retired library manager of information systems. Driven by a spirit of paying it forward, together they have worked to address the digital divide in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Thanks in part to their efforts, by early 2025, every home in Washtenaw County is set to be connected with high-speed, fiber-based broadband. Washtenaw County, in the southeast region of Michigan, is home to over 320,000 residents.

An extraordinary, first-ever, nationwide effort in digital equity and opportunity is currently underway. Thanks to funding provided under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), all 50 states and six territories are in the final stages of developing first-of-their-kind statewide digital equity and digital opportunity plans (Plans). Only a year ago, not a single state or territory had developed a comprehensive statewide Plan of this scale focused on the full spectrum of internet adoption issues.

States are racing to finish their Initial Proposals for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's $40+ billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. One of the things they need to be thinking about is how to design their programs so that they have viable applicants for all their eligible locations, not just most of them. This requires a radical shift in mindset from past grantmaking activities, when the state’s task was to award grants to improve service in discrete areas.

Under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, providers are required to offer a low-cost option to subscribers who are eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). However, the exact definition of what will qualify as “low-cost” is up to state and territory broadband offices to decide.

The prison communication industry is dominated by two companies—Securus and ViaPath. Together, they serve the vast majority of jails and prisons. Bundling of services is standard practice: devices, communication services, payment services, and even ownership of the inmate networks.