Op-Ed

The internet's absence of central control, or even easy central monitoring created gaps of responsibility for maintaining valuable content that others rely on. Links work seamlessly until they don’t.

The conventional wisdom has been that major cities have borne the economic brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic and face the longest odds of a full and quick recovery. While the future of many American cities may truly be challenging, the pandemic’s toll on rural economies may be even more difficult to overcome in the long-term because of insufficient digital infrastructure and broadband access. According to the Federal Communications Commission, nearly four in ten rural Americans do not have access to high-speed internet, roughly ten times the rate among urban Americans.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Biden administration have taken significant steps to fill the broadband gap in the United States, but bridging the divide is not easy. Figuring out where the broadband gaps are is no small task, and current mapping efforts fall short by overstating the amount of broadband in given locations—a product of relying on industry-reported data which is inherently incomplete.

Incremental progress and temporary band-aids to mend the digital divide aren't a sufficient response to such a fundamental obstacle to equity and opportunity; as the late Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis argued, unequal internet access is "the civil rights issue of the 21st Century." That's why Congress must now work to transform the temporary Emergency Broadband Benefit initiative into a permanent broadband assistance program. Civil rights advocates–including the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council–have laid out a 

The Biden administration’s strategy to tackle the digital divide places too much emphasis on wires and competition and too little on people and communities. By proposing $65 billion in broadband spending, the administration aims to spur marketplace competition, supercharge network speeds, and reduce home internet prices. Yet a lot can go wrong when prioritizing competition, as competition and affordability do not go hand-in-hand; when prices drop, they rarely fall to levels that make service affordable for low-income households who make up most of the disconnected.

President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan prioritizes “building ‘future proof’ broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas so that we finally reach 100 percent high-speed broadband coverage.” Many considered this an imperative to spend the funds on fiber-to-the-home connections. Yet is fiber—and more precisely, fiber-optic "last mile" connections into residences—really future proof? As the amount of devices and data generated have multiplied, fixed connections to them have diminished.

Schools and libraries have an enormous window of opportunity to help their students and patrons obtain affordable internet access. At the end of this month, the Federal Communications Commission will open a 45-day filing window for the Emergency Connectivity Fund program, which will make $7.17 billion available to fund broadband service and devices off-campus.

The pandemic made it clearer than ever how much we depend on a fast, reliable broadband. But getting online for millions of Americans is too costly and in many cases the service is inadequate. Robust competition creates scrutiny and accountability that can prevent big telecommunications companies from expanding data cap limits when people are more dependent than ever on an internet connection. Even during the pandemic, Comcast and other internet service providers still enforce these data caps in markets where they face little or no competition.

It’s time for states to step up and realize that proper technology and WiFi connectivity are a must-have in public school districts, and that state policy is dangerously lagging behind. While systems might not continue to operate as 100 percent virtual schools in a post-COVID world, better access to learning technology is no longer negotiable in this increasingly-digital world. Hybrid schooling models can offer significant opportunities for personalized learning, from special education students to students in rural areas who don’t have adequate wireless connectivity at home.