AT&T’s Digital Redlining Of Cleveland

A mapping analysis of Federal Communications Commission broadband availability data, conducted by Connect Your Community and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, strongly suggests that AT&T has systematically discriminated against lower-income Cleveland (OH) neighborhoods in its deployment of home Internet and video technologies over the past decade. Our analysis, based on newly released FCC Form 477 Census block data for June 2016, provides clear evidence that AT&T has withheld fiber-enhanced broadband improvements from most Cleveland neighborhoods with high poverty rates.

This analysis is part of a six-month effort that began when CYC and NDIA learned that residents of many Cleveland neighborhoods were being declared ineligible for AT&T’s “Access” discount rate program, solely because they couldn’t get AT&T connections at the 3 mbps download speed that was then the program’s minimum requirement. After analyzing previous FCC Form 477 data releases, along with City construction permits and other information, we’ve come to believe that the ultra-slow AT&T Internet speeds available to those Access applicants reflect a larger problem: AT&T’s failure to invest to upgrade most of its Cleveland network to the company’s mainstream technology.