Op-Ed

You can't fix a problem you don’t understand, and it’s very clear that the Federal Communications Commission under Donald Trump doesn’t want to understand its failure to make affordable broadband available to all Americans. During a pandemic when Americans are forced to work, learn, and get their health care online, the FCC’s refusal to accurately measure US broadband connectivity gaps has quickly shifted from administrative farce to outright tragedy. The FCC’s 2020 Broadband Deployment Report, released last June, claims the number of Americans without access to broadband sits somewhere aro

Access to affordable broadband is crucial for a functioning 21st century democracy. As technology advances, many of our basic democratic values depend on robust connectivity. Broadband enhances civic engagement, participation in the democratic process, and a responsive government.

President Donald Trump’s ongoing assault against Twitter may represent the most egregious violation of the First Amendment by a president since Richard M. Nixon went to war against this newspaper almost half a century ago. Not since the McCarthy era has our country experienced such an effort to neuter the press and evade the government accountability that comes only through meaningful reporting. Consider what could lie ahead.

Many Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are located in rural areas and blighted urban centers. These are the same places where large communities of color struggle with access to health care and face innumerable obstacles to access affordable and reliable broadband.

As anchors of the community, upgraded broadband infrastructure will help Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) serve the needs of unserved and underserved communities that are too often overlooked or ignored.

I’m leading 45 of my colleagues in the Senate to fight for at least $4 billion to be delivered through the E-Rate program so students receive the Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers, and internet connected devices they need to learn at home. Excluding this critical aid from a new coronavirus relief package—as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Republican lawmakers recently did—will exacerbate already substantial inequities for decades. Sixteen million of our nation’s most vulnerable children will continue to suffer. They will continue to fall behind.

We must roll out a Digital Learning Ambassadors corps immediately, staffed by young adults in predominantly immigrant communities. Millions of young people, like my students at Rutgers University, are either completing remote coursework at home or graduated this past spring. They are looking for meaningful, paid work. As tech-savvy, native speakers of languages spoken by the K-12 students who struggled most in remote learning this spring, they are our best untapped resource for supporting better learning experiences this fall.

Popular narratives about the digital divide that separates our nation are too often anchored narrowly on the mere availability of broadband in a community. And now, emerging narratives about Census 2020 self-reporting issues routinely fail to look beyond the pandemic disruptions. Physical paper Census forms had been the traditional means of survey and reply, and the expectation for generations of respondents. But the Census Bureau made the calculation this year that 78.2% of households should want to, would be able to — and simply would just jump online to self-report crucial information.

One might be excused for thinking that by now, more than 200 years after the first disputed presidential election, our forebears or ourselves would have stepped up to the issue and put in place the mechanics necessary to allow a democratic nation to hold a democratic election.

The lack of broadband internet access in West Virginia is a microcosm of a global issue. Almost half of the world’s population lacks access to the internet, but many people are unaware of the extent of the digital divide. At the Internet Society, we work with local communities in remote, underserved and indigenous areas around the world to extend internet access using low-cost wireless technologies and equipment.