There are 45,000 households in Charlotte (NC) without a subscription to broadband Internet. Unlike rural swaths of the state, the city is rich in infrastructure and competition from service providers. Across North Carolina, about 20% of homes have no Internet subscription, but in certain urban neighborhoods, that number is more than doubled.

The pandemic brought this Internet divide into stark focus. In rural communities, Internet providers haven't installed the lines needed to connect to high-speed service. More than 75,000 students fall in those holes, state Department of Public Instruction officials estimate. The urban problem looks far different. Internet providers have laid the infrastructure, but the average monthly cost of $60 is too steep for some. Research shows that people of color are less likely to have Internet access than their white counterparts. State public instruction leaders estimate that about 290,000 students live in homes without a subscription to Internet service. And roughly 70,000 live in a home without access to a computer.

“Broadband” is short-hand for an “always-on,” high-speed internet connection provided by a company or other entity known as an “internet service provider” (ISP). We say “always-on” to differentiate contemporary internet connections from the dial-up era of the 1990s, when a user had to dial a telephone number through their computer to connect. Today, the internet comes to us uninterrupted and we cannot get “booted off” if someone lifts up a phone receiver. We say “high-speed” connection because not all internet connections are technically broadband (see below for more on this point). Currently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the federal agency in charge of wired and wireless communications, defines a broadband connection as one with a minimum download speed of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) and a minimum upload speed of 3 Mbps (commonly depicted as “25/3 Mbps” or just 25/3). At this speed, someone could stream a Netflix movie, while another user in the same household could post Instagram content and neither would experience any buffering (slow down). Many people have faster internet connections than that minimum threshold. The average fixed download speed in the United States in 2018 was 96.25 Mbps, while the average upload speed was 32.88 Mbps.

Verizon is appealing to the Federal Communications Commission to prevent T-Mobile from getting its hands on leases of more 600 MHz spectrum. T-Mobile applied for instant spectrum leases with Channel 51 License Company and LB License Co. to lease 600 MHz spectrum in a number of major markets, including Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, and Seattle, among others. Channel 51 and LB License Co. had been lending 600 MHz spectrum to T-Mobile to help the carrier boost its network during the Covid-19 pandemic. And T-Mobile wants to now convert those loans into leases. But Verizon is opposing T-Mobile’s access to the spectrum, arguing that the additional 600 MHz of spectrum, if granted to T-Mobile, would cause Verizon “competitive harms.” And it’s hanging its legal hat on the fact that the additional spectrum would cause T-Mobile to exceed a “spectrum screen” set by the FCC.