internet connectivity – Techdirt (original) (raw)

In New York City, We've Taken The Digital Divide Into Our Own Hands During Covid

from the if-you-want-something-done-right dept

Broadband is in a state of disarray in America. This was the case long before COVID-19 brought the world to its knees earlier this year. Roughly a third of Americans have no access to broadband internet, with the majority stating cost as the most important obstacle. Even in highly connected urban areas, such as New York City, a lack of connectivity impacts millions of residents. According to Mayor de Blasio’s Internet Master Plan, 40% of New Yorkers lack access to home or mobile broadband, including roughly 20% who lack access to both.

Many of these internet black out zones are in low income and minority communities. As the coronavirus pandemic set in, internet accessibility became more crucial than ever. However, as schools transitioned to online learning, many children were unable to participate – and continue to face the same challenge today, months later. Our community at NYC Mesh is fighting to bring digital equity to all communities of NY, and our solution is simple: provide internet to everyone. As COVID makes our society ever more digital, I believe our solution provides a meaningful model for how grassroots movements can shape the connectivity landscape.

At NYC Mesh we are developing strategies to improve internet accessibility, by creating an open Wi-Fi wireless and fiber network in three boroughs – and more to come. Since NYC Mesh was founded in 2014, it has nearly doubled in size every year. However, like many other organizations, COVID took a toll on our ability to expand the network and service members.

At the beginning of the year, NYC Mesh had about 500 successful nodes on the network – rooftop antennas connecting residents online and further expanding the reach of our community infrastructure in the city. The network was blanketing lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, with plans to begin connecting residents in Queens. Community meetings were filling rooms and teams of volunteers were at the ready to carry out seven installs a week, update our supporting webpage, participate in hackathons, perform maintenance and keep the network running, or any other of the many tasks involved in bridging community organizing and connectivity.

As with the rest of New York, COVID forced NYC Mesh to adapt, and quickly. We did so by acting locally: the weeks before New York’s shelter in place order entered into effect, volunteers attempted to connect immediate neighbors, anyone in walking distance that we could connect. Ultimately, however, COVID forced the organization to limit its work to only emergency maintenance or circumstances when a new member had no other means to get online.

Despite these limitations there were other ways we could help. NYC Mesh operates almost entirely on the suggested contributions of its members. We don’t speak the language of “service cutoffs,” billing, fees, or other creations of for-profit ISPs. When members of our community lost a job or simply had to prioritize other expenses in their life, they could rest assured that they wouldn’t lose their connection online. Of course, as with groups across the nation, our monthly community meetings transitioned online; PPE became a requirement for all in-person site visits and installations; and we added digital training videos and maintained an extensive online doc to help educate our new members.

We started taking in requests for new installations again in June and the number of install requests have once again reached about seven a week. While some of our regular volunteers have had to step back as a result of the COVID shutdown, new volunteers have stepped forward, who have brought with them amazing contributions to help continue the expansion of the Mesh. While COVID may have slowed down NYC Mesh’s operations, we still continue to pursue our goal of bringing digital equity to all New Yorkers.

Digital learning was an integral part of education long before the coronavirus and its importance is only increasing. As the need for broadband access rises, the gap in internet access has become more evident, and the consequences more severe. Coronavirus provided the perfect example of how the lack of broadband access can put many, especially children at risk. Children, especially children of color, are receiving less days of instructed learning than their more privileged peers. Prior to COVID, a child could go to an after-school program or library to get online. Now, most of these facilities are closed, limiting the options of those without internet at home to receive an education.

NYC Mesh is here to organize, empower, and connect, which is why we’re partnering with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to expand the mesh network into public housing and enable free, fair, and community-based internet access to residents. The people of these communities face many obstacles, a lack of broadband access being one of the most severe yet overlooked. Having access to the internet at home means it will be easier for residents to apply for jobs online, work remotely, and access safety net benefits. Most importantly, it allows children to receive a full education during this pandemic. With this partnership, some of the most vulnerable members of our population will gain access to the internet, bringing us one step closer to digital equity for all New Yorkers.

As we face yet another potential wave of COVID, it is clear that digital equity must be the goal in order to ensure that all New Yorkers can be successful. Employment opportunities, safety net access, and education, will increasingly become dependent on having internet access. Without stable broadband access, the gap between rich and poor widens, and the circle of poverty will continue for the next generation of children of color. Thanks to the efforts of NYC Mesh and other community-run and community-first organizations who have stepped up to tackle this challenge like Silicon Harlem or The Point, we are closer to bringing digital equity to the City of New York and ensuring that no child receives a lesser education, because of their parents’ inability to pay a monthly internet bill.

Terique Boyce is an organizer with NYC Mesh and resident of NYCHA housing. He works towards achieving greater representation of people of color in the tech industry and bridging the digital divide in NYC.

Filed Under: broadband, covid-19, digital divide, internet connectivity, mesh, mesh networks, nyc, nycha
Companies: nyc mesh

New Bill Would Kill State Laws Blocking Broadband Competition

from the Do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Tue, Jun 30th 2020 06:22am - Karl Bode

For years we’ve noted how the United States has spent billions on broadband subsidies, tax breaks, and regulatory favors for major ISPs, only to receive half-completed networks. That’s largely thanks to lobbyists and the captured regulators who love them, resulting in a government that doesn’t do a great job tracking where subsidy money is spent, refuses to seriously police fraud, still doesn’t really know where broadband is or isn’t available, and routinely approves terrible industry consolidating mergers.

The result: the US is mediocre in nearly every major broadband metric that matters — some 42 million US consumers still can’t get any broadband whatsoever, and Americans pay some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world. To fix this will require a deep look in the mirror, some significant campaign finance reform on the state and federal level, and the elimination of a revolving door regulator system that all but ensures the US broadband monopoly problem is perpetuated. Instead of doing that, we routinely try to thrown even more money at the problem in the hopes that this time will surely be different.

Enter the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act (H.R. 7302), which would create an $80 billion fiber infrastructure program run by a new Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth, coordinating the US government’s response to our broadband dysfunction. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes, the bill is certainly filled with a lot of good ideas, including the elimination of the 19 state laws giant ISPs have lobbied for (and in many cases literally written) that prohibit or hamstring towns and cities looking to build their own broadband networks, even if the private sector has failed them:

“The bill will also free up local governments to pursue community broadband. The removal of state laws advocated by the major national ISPs that ban local communities from building their own broadband access network is long overdue. The public sector has long ago proven essential to the effort to build universal fiber as rural cooperatives, small cities, and townships are building fiber networks in areas long ago skipped by the private sector.”

There’s a lot of other helpful portions of the bill, including a section that upgrades the standard definition of broadband from 25 Mbps downstream, 4 Mbps upstream, to a more symmetrical 25 Mbps downstream, 25 Mbps upstream. The bill also widely advocates for fiber networks that are “open access,” meaning the construction of fiber networks that can then be shared between multiple ISPs, creating a strange concept known as “competition.” It would also mandate “dig once” rules that would require laying fiber and fiber conduit alongside any new highway build project.

The problem, of course, is that giants like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter Spectrum all but own more than half of the current US Congress and current White House leadership, so it’s unlikely to pass in the Senate or be signed into law:

“The big ISPs, which fail to deliver universal access but enjoy comfortable monopolies and charge you prices at 200% to 300% above competitive rates, will resist this effort. Even when it is profitable to deliver fiber, the national ISPs have chosen not to do it in exchange for short-term profits. A massive infrastructure program, the kind that helped countries like South Korea become global leaders in broadband, aren?t just desperately needed in the United States, it is a requirement. No other country on planet Earth has made progress in delivering universal fiber without an infrastructure policy of this type.”

As always, we can’t pass effective broadband laws or ensure we have consistent regulators armed with policies that promote competition because government has been largely corrupted by lobbying and campaign contributions. And, unfortunately, fixing this isn’t likely to happen under the current Congress, even before you get to the whole “raging pandemic and massive pile of resulting debt” thing. Should the bill pass the House, it’s all but certain to meet a swift death in the Senate. A bill like this could eventually be approved, but it’s going to require a massive shakeup in Congress and campaign finance reform first.

Filed Under: accessible, affordable, broadband, competition, internet connectivity, internet for all, open access