Mission

COVID widens the Digital Divide

Students living in low-income communities have been dramatically impacted by the closing of schools and the shift to online virtual school. School administrators learned quickly that students did not have a computer at home or access to high-speed internet. The reality has hit home that families on a tight budget were not paying $50 a month for a minimal level of internet access at home and the only computing device was a cell phone.

Local school boards and government agencies are responding to the problem by providing students cellular WiFi hot spots which have limited capacity and will not scale in a neighborhood, encouraging families to sign up for high-speed internet access using a local service provider and deploying WiFi Mesh networks in impoverished communities.

In the same way, government agencies have invested taxpayer funds over the last century into roads, clean water, sewer, utilities, and public education it is time to add high-speed internet as a basic necessity for all in an ever-increasing technology-driven economy.

Billions will be spent on the digital divide problem going to established companies like Comcast, ATT, Cox, Frontier, and Verizon that are in the business of delivering high-speed internet and services to the home. The problem is so large and time is so critical that we are advocating for one home, one city block, one neighborhood at a time approach that can be used to create community-driven initiatives where time, money, resources are invested in local residents for work-force training to install and deliver world-class high-speed internet