[This post is from a series written during the first weeks of the COVID crisis.]
Remember the Digital Divide – that some have internet and some do not?
BIG talk of that in the ‘90’s and 2000’s that virtually disappeared as soon as every kid (and everyone) had a smartphone.
No problem anymore.
They all have phones and gaming systems.
No kid will let anything get in the way of their access to the internet.
Fugettaboudit.
Right?
Then all the coffee shops closed, and people were stuck in their homes, and I don’t know if you can do remote classroom on your PlayStation.
You certainly can’t do it on your phone – or, no one has figured out yet how to do it.
(It would have been a universal place to start.)
However, just having a device doesn’t mean anything – as any district handing out a thousand netbooks will tell you.
You need bandwidth, including bandwidth for the other family members stuck in your house, who – if they are lucky and employed – are using a ton of it for videoconferencing.
Cheesy-Bits will not do it. You need big bytes.
And where are those bytes?
Not in rural areas, despite explicit promises by the telecoms to provide them with services. (See recent status here.)*
And not with people who have tight expenses.
The pricing charts for broadband from our monopoly wireless companies are not helpful to those trying to to have something left over at the end of the month, especially if we are talking about a family.
Some people are having to drive miles to parking lots in order to snag WiFi broad enough to do their professional work or classwork, with some students missing weeks of instruction, while sorting out their access.**
Is this fair?
No.
Internet is a lifeblood, even more so when our lives are confined to our homes.
* “Mapping Broadband Health in America 2017,” Connections2HealthFCC, fcc.gov, Broadband Gaps in America
** “Parking Lots Have Become a Digital Lifeline,“ by Cecilia Kang The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/technology/parking-lots-wifi-coronavirus.html
Heart illustration licensed from 123rf, 91026665.
WiFi icon by Baboon Designs, US, The Noun Project, https://thenounproject.com/search/?q=%20829902&i=829902