National Digital Inclusion Alliance

On February 27 and 28, in partnership with the Benton Foundation, three digital inclusion innovators, joined NDIA's Angela Siefer for a round of meetings in DC. Amina Fazlullah, NDIA’s Policy Advisor and a Mozilla Tech Policy Fellow, made arrangements for four visits to senate offices and two visits to FCC commissioner offices, in addition to a meeting with Mozilla Tech Policy Fellows and an update on potential infrastructure legislation from SHLB Coalition’s John Windhausen. Thanks to Susan Corbett, we also met with Senator Angus King (I-Maine).

The second Charles Benton Digital Equity Champion Award will be presented in May at Net Inclusion 2017 in St. Paul (MN) by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). This is a call for nominations for candidates for the award.

Digital Equity is a condition in which all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity they need for full participation in our society, democracy and economy. Digital Equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services. Named for Charles Benton, the founder of the Benton Foundation, the award was created by NDIA to recognize leadership and dedication in advancing digital equity: from promoting the ideal of accessible and affordable communications technology for all Americans, to crafting programs and policies that make it a reality.

The deadline for nominations for this year’s award is midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) Friday, April 14, 2017.

Earlier in Feb the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and Connect Your Community, a Cleveland (OH) based organization, published a report indicating that AT&T had “systematically discriminated against lower income Cleveland neighborhoods in its deployment of home internet and video technologies over the last decade.” The analysis shows that AT&T has failed to upgrade its network in low income neighborhoods, including most of the City of Dayton, while deploying a high-speed fiber based network in wealthier suburban areas.

“The company has upgraded areas around the City to its mainstream technology (Fiber to the Node, VDSL) but has failed to do that in Dayton, leaving those neighborhoods with an older, much slower technology (ADSL-2),” said Ellis Jacobs, senior attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. According to Jacobs, “this has all the appearances of ‘digital redlining,’ discrimination against residents of lower income urban neighborhoods in the type of infrastructure AT&T installs and the type of broadband service it offers. High-speed internet is a critical modern day utility. Without it, residents and businesses are at a distinct disadvantage.”

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.

The Federal Communications Commission's March 31, 2016 Order that modernized Lifeline to include broadband service included references to the FCC working with the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) when implementing the National Verifier (an online platform that will verify eligibility) "to provide Lifeline providers with guidance and procedures for creating aggregation projects and for enrolling subscribers in aggregation projects".

A footnote on page 55 of the Order states "USAC will not fund consumer outreach efforts but may provide administration and expertise to community-based organizations, housing associations, and institutions seeking to coordinate the aggregation of benefits." The National Verifier will not be ready for multiple years. Until then, Internet Service Providers of Lifeline Broadband and community-based organizations, housing associations and institutions may develop agreements to cooperatively aggregate eligible households of Lifeline Broadband service.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) launches Digital Inclusion Trailblazers, a resource for tracking local government digital inclusion leadership and programs. With the support of Mobile Citizen, a provider of low-cost mobile Internet exclusively to nonprofits, educational entities and social welfare agencies, NDIA has developed a public inventory of local government initiatives across the US that promote digital literacy and broadband access for underserved residents.

“Our goal is to create a powerful advocacy and promotional tool for local, state and national digital inclusion leadership, and an easy-to-access database of examples and contacts for communities interested in taking similar steps themselves,” said NDIA Director Angela Siefer. The inventory includes information on key indicators of municipal and county government leadership on digital inclusion, along with online references and local contacts.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance releases its new list of "The Top 25 Worst Connected U.S. Cities, 2015". Our rankings for 2015 are based on recently released Census data on home access to fixed broadband Internet services. This includes wireline broadband technologies (cable Internet, DSL, fiber to the premises) as well as satellite and "fixed wireless" technologies. It does not include 3G and 4G mobile devices like smartphones, or non-broadband connections like dial-up modems.

At the top of 2015's Worst Connected is Detroit (MI), where a full 54% (!) of all households still didn't have fixed broadband connections in 2015. Second on the list was Brownsville (TX) at 52%, followed closely by Cleveland (OH) at 48%, Memphis (TN) at 47%, and Shreveport (LA) and Laredo (TX) at 45%.

AT&T has declined to make its new low-cost Internet program available to many thousands of eligible households who have the bad luck to live at an address where the company's maximum download speed for new residential accounts is below 3 mbps. Here’s the story. “Access From AT&T” is a low-cost broadband service that was a Federal Communications Commission condition of AT&T's merger with DirectTV. Launched in most AT&T markets in April, the program is supposed to enable any user of the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to purchase AT&T high speed home Internet service for either $10 or $5 a month, depending on the download speed “technically available” at the user's address – 10 Mbps for $10/mo, 5 Mbps for $10/mo or 3 Mbps for $5 (plus tax).

As some National Digital Inclusion Alliance affiliates in AT&T's service area geared up to help SNAP participants apply for Access in May and June, they found that a significant number were being told the program was unavailable at their addresses. Some of those households had recent histories of AT&T Internet service or had next door neighbors with current accounts. So, why were they being told AT&T did not serve their addresses? The problem: The threshold for Access From AT&T is a download speed of 3 Mbps. If the fastest speed available at a particular address is less than 3 mbps, an otherwise eligible SNAP recipient at that address can't sign up for Access – though they can pay full price for lower speeds.