Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our relationship with space and buildings has changed. As going outside became dangerous, school and work shifted to at home. Businesses shifted online, court proceedings switched over to Teams, and students were now part of Zoom school, sometimes without a reliable home connection. This work-from-home shift sheds light on an important phenomenon: the digital divide.
The digital divide refers to the growing gap that exists between certain marginalized communities in the U.S. such as low-income, elderly, rural, and differently-abled folks who don't have access to computers or the internet. The gap continues to grow and widens along economic and racial lines. Broadband refers to high-speed internet access and is crucial not only to education in rural areas but to almost every other facet of life- healthcare, civic engagement, and public safety.
One state that lags in broadband access is my home state of Arizona. In 8 out of 15 counties, no more than 32% of households actually have high-speed internet access. It is no coincidence that many of these areas are low-income, rural, and/or indigenous communities. According to Verge's 2021 map of America's broadband problem, only 5% of people in Arizona's Apache County are actually using broadband speed at 25 Mbps. To put this in perspective, Apache County is 11,000 square miles with 65,000 people, 74.5% of who are indigenous. In southern Arizona's Santa Cruz County, with 47,000 people across 600 square miles, only 11% have access to broadband. The internet has been deeply engrained into our daily lives. From accessing telehealth and medical records online to simply being able to do Zoom calls and connect with people who live in different states or countries, the Internet is a basic need.
With special attention on Arizona and broadband federally there has been a new effort to provide high-speed internet in impacted communities. In late 2022, Biden announced commitments from communication companies several of which have been operating in Arizona to limit internet bills to $30 a month for some eligible households. Termed the Affordable Connectivity Program, eligible households will receive a discount, with those on tribal lands receiving up to $75 off. But, how much does this program really do? Arizona, the sixth largest state in the U.S. is served only by seven major internet providers, a majority of which aren't even available in most counties or capable of providing high-speed internet. This leaves only a few actual service providers that people can choose from.
Are discounts enough to provide rural areas with broadband access? Companies with near-monopolies such as Cox which provides service to 69% of the state are not incentivized to build millions of dollars of broadband infrastructure in places like Apache or Santa Cruz County because no profit is to be made due to diseconomies of scale. Removing the profit incentive could ensure equal and efficient access to rural communities.
Other sources of money such as federally funded grants like the Arizona Broadband Development Grant Program has specific allocations for rural communities enabling local communities to build their own or improve broadband infrastructure in rural and urban areas of the state. $75 million for 14 projects will go to 10 rural counties which goes towards "increasing connections for homes, business, public safety agencies, medical facilities, schools, and libraries" Apache County has received $9.7 million in funding to connect homes and businesses to fiber optic infrastructure. What if, instead of putting the onus on individuals or specific colleges and institutions to provide internet to their communities which are nothing more than temporary solutions, the government ensured high-speed access to all? Where you live should not determine whether you have access to basic human rights such as shelter, food, transportation, and good education and this includes the internet. The digital divide disproportionately impacts communities of color, especially those located in rural areas. As the gap widens along economic and racial lines, a reconception of broadband access is crucial to bridging the gap and delivering equity to rural communities.
2 comments:
This is really interesting information, thanks for posting! It made me wonder what the statistics for California were, since we live in a state that has so much variety between rural and urban centers. Interestingly enough, the California State Assembly has a committee called the “Select Committee on the Digital Divide in Rural California," whose sole purpose is to address this problem. Seems like they’ve helped with related legislation since at least 2008, and hold informational hearings to educate the Assembly on this problem. It definitely appears to be a big and ever-growing issue here in California, too- I found a source that shows somewhat similar numbers to the ones seen in Arizona. Ultimately, I agree with you that much larger scale action must be taken to truly fix this problem. There’s been a growing movement, made louder by the pandemic, to recognize broadband internet as a public utility. This would mean that the government (theoretically) treats it as an essential service, using its regulatory power to ensure universal affordable broadband access. While things almost certainly wouldn’t work out that well practically (just think PG&E), it would certainly be a step up from trying to force large telecom companies to act in the best interests of rural communities through legislation only.
Here's the source for the California digital divide numbers: [https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-digital-divide/]
Growing up in a rural area, my family always joked about having bad internet in the country. That said, our concerns were superficial, operating from a place of privilege, and usually focused on who was going to get to stream TV or other online content that night. It has only been more recently (thanks to posts like this!) that I am fully appreciating the ways in which the internet, and specifically access to broadband, can be a basic human right. Given that access to broadband is crucial to better outcomes across the board, as well as fact that lack of access hits rural communities and communities of color the hardest, I think calling attention to this issue and advocating for further action, as you do here, is really important.
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