Groups Petition Congress for Broadband Billions During Pandemic

Backed by Sens Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a dozen internet access activist groups have generated over 110,000 signatures on a petition to Congress to include funds in the next COVID-19 aid bill to make sure every American has internet and phone service during the pandemic. The groups backing the petition are Access Now, Common Sense Media, Consumer Reports, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, Free Press Action, Libraries Without Borders, MediaJustice, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. "The cost of broadband is so high and the broadband-providers’ policies are so discriminatory that even before the crisis began and millions lost their sources of income, more than one-fifth of households nationwide didn’t have home internet,” reads the petition. “Internet and phone access should be affordable public services — like water and electricity. We demand that you provide the billions of dollars needed to get and keep people connected to broadband and phone services during the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis."