Broadband Myths: Do ISPs Engage in “Digital Redlining?”

Some activists have begun to frame location-based broadband discrepancies in racial terms, accusing Internet service providers (ISPs) of “digital redlining.” But an analysis of Census data and facts on the ground has found that the “digital redlining” narrative—while an emotion-triggering term—does not stand up to scrutiny. To contend that the source of the problem is racially motivated decisions by broadband companies, as was the case with financial redlining and banks, is to misdiagnose the problem in a way that is counterproductive to solving it. In market after market, there is almost no statistical relationship between the racial composition of a neighborhood and connectivity. There is, however, a correlation between income and broadband connectivity. High-speed Internet is widely available in areas with high non-White populations. The best-connected area in a broad study is majority non-White, and individual homes in majority non-White neighborhoods have fast broadband available.