The New Normal

My top priority for the year ahead, which should surprise no one, is continuing the work we have been laser-focused on all year: making sure all Americans have access to high-speed broadband. Here, in year two of our battle with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are enduring the lingering effects of a multilayered crisis that has reverberated across healthcare, education, the economy, widespread job losses, and food insecurity. I truly believe, as the late Congressman John Lewis said, that access to the internet is a civil right; in fact, he said it is “the civil rights issue of the 21st century.” There are multi-variable reasons why we have Americans that remain disconnected. I need not visit each of them here, but for years now I have focused, in particular, on the fact that for tens of millions of people across this country, they remain disconnected because they lack access to an affordable home broadband connection. And even now, Black people and other people of color in America are still, by a wide margin, significantly less likely to have a home broadband connection than their white counterparts. An essential piece of our broadband deployment challenge is creating digital equity by bridging the digital divide and the opportunity divide.