Affordability/Cost/Price

This year-long research project surveyed rural and urban Pennsylvanians about their willingness to pay for high-speed broadband service. It provides a unique first look into factors that continue to create substantial barriers to closing the digital divide. The researchers surveyed 1,446 Pennsylvania residents in May and June 2020. They used a hybrid telephone/SMS (short message service, or “text messaging”) survey that asked respondents about the type of internet technology available to them, broadband pricing, and willingness to pay for 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) broadband.

The Federal Communications Commission does not collect broadband pricing data or analyze the price of broadband access. This is despite numerous studies detailing how cost is one of the biggest barriers to broadband adoption, a stark divide that disproportionately harms Black, Latinx, tribal, and rural communities. The COVID-19 pandemic casts this gap in a grim new light. For the incoming administration, the solution is as close at hand as the nearest jar of pasta sauce or container of ice cream.

About 600,000 Virginians, mostly in Southwest, Southside and the Tidewater areas, lack access to broadband. Even where some theoretically have access to it, they can’t afford it. And Virginia doesn’t currently have a plan to address affordability. “The affordability problem remains out there, and it’s significant,” Evan Feinman, the governor’s chief broadband adviser, told the Virginia Broadband Advisory Council.

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Communications Commission pushed internet service providers to promise they wouldn't penalize customers who struggled to pay their internet bills when they needed connectivity the most. More than 800 companies signed onto the Keep Americans Connected pledge, a commitment to not disconnect customers who were behind on their bills or charge late-payment fees that drew effusive praise from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Comcast will extend its commitments to help people connect to the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic as millions continue to stay home while many workplaces and schools operate virtually. Comcast will continue to provide free Internet service for the first 60 days for new Internet Essentials customers, and free access to more than 1.5 million public Xfinity WiFi hotspots, the largest network of its kind in the country, through June 30, 2021. The announcement marks the third time Comcast has extended these commitments.

Access to broadband is essential to boost telehealth, which has skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said. "Access to telemedicine and telehealth via affordable, reliable broadband is going to be extremely important to making sure that folks can safely manage their health from home," he added. "It's especially necessary, again, for our elderly members who may be on a fixed income, but also need to be able to stay safe instead of trying to get through public transportation or further risking themselves going to a physician's office.

NCTA-the Internet & Television Association President Michael Powell said that when it comes to universal broadband service, it is always hard when you get to the last portion of the population still on the other side of digital opportunity, so government needs to step up funding, including perhaps making broadband service part of the social safety net, like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the scale and consequences of the digital divide and underlined the urgent need to find solutions to digital inequality. Governments are being forced to reassess priorities and step up with innovative solutions to address a range of challenges across health, employment, education, and economic resiliency. As the internet and digital technology will play an increasingly important role in our world, governments must develop policies to deliver affordable and meaningful connectivity to all.

In the summer of 2020, the Hamilton County (TN) public school system – which encompasses the city of Chattanooga – announced it would be providing high-speed internet access to families with students on free or reduced lunch plans through a program called EdConnect. The service is funded through the next ten years, the school board says, meaning the free high-speed internet should well outlast the pandemic.