The Podium
Blog posts tagged with 'Digital Divide'
Friday, February 19
By David
Portada points to a new report from the U.S. Department of Commerce that shows for Hispanic Americans the digital divide is still in place, despite some recent gains:
43,08% of Hispanics use a broadband (39.74%) or dial up connection (2.98%) at home, while 49.31% uses the internet either at home or anywhere. The percentage of Hispanics who do not have Internet access lies at 50.69% in comparison with a 25.68% ratio for White Non Hispanic.
Read the full report, “Digital Nation: 21st Century America’s Progress Toward Universal Broadband Internet Access.”
Tuesday, February 16
By Bruce
Multichannel News digs into a new report from the FCC on the state of high speed Internet in America and finds there’s clear evidence that despite gains, the digital divide is alive and well — especially in low-density areas:
For the fixed connections, like cable and DSL, the commission data found that in 200 counties (representing 1% of U.S. households), no more than 20% met that definition of high speed, while in about half as many counties (104) with eight times the population (8% of the households), 80% had at least those speeds.
Wednesday, February 10
By Bruce
Post Tech reports that Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill that will expand a program to bring e-book readers and broadband access to low-income students.
The bill is an expansion of the original program passed in 1996 along with the Telecom Act, which increased school connectivity from 12% to 95%.
Monday, February 08
By IIA
IIA Co-Chairman David Sutphen has penned a piece for Ebony magazine about why the FCC should direct its attention to the National Broadband Plan and closing the digital divide, as opposed to divisive new regulations. Check it out.
Thursday, February 04
By David
10 Reasons Why New Internet Regulations Impede Common Goals of Connecting All Americans and Closing Digital Divide
1. Considerable progress has been made in our first broadband decade – progress that has only been achieved because of the FCC’s longstanding, deregulatory approach to the Internet. In roughly ten years we have gone from practically zero broadband deployment to more than 95 percent availability and 63 percent adoption, according to the FCC and Pew.
2. The open Internet exists today. We have been living with ‘net neutrality’ since 2004, when it was established that companies cannot control the content and applications that people are able to access online.
3. The net neutrality debate, which only concerns those already online, is a distraction from creating an effective National Broadband Plan. The people who have the most to lose from this balancing act are the socially and economically disenfranchised – members of rural, low-income, urban, tribal, minority, non-English speaking, unserved and underserved populations.
4. The Commission’s recent request for an extension of time to deliver a National Broadband Plan underscores the need for the agency to devote more – not less – attention and resources to completing a national strategy.
5. Experts on the digital divide have not cited “lack of net neutrality regulations” as either a cause or a cure for race or income-based differences in broadband adoption. The current net neutrality war that has erupted in Washington, DC has very little to do with the interests of the unserved and underserved.
6. It is impossible to know for sure how new Internet regulations would impact private investment, and a decline in capital investments in broadband could have a harmful effect on jobs and the US economy. In fact, a reduction by five percent would reduce employment by 47,073 according to research from the ITIF or 78,455 according to former FCC commissioner and economist Harold Furchtgott-Roth.
7. Today’s open Internet is making possible huge innovation. We reduce the possibilities and raise barriers if we don’t give everyone access to smart networks.
8. Lack of net neutrality regulations cannot be reduced to “charging more fees and extracting more money from wealthier customers.” On the contrary, the FCC has laid out six principles of net neutrality, which have the potential to impact Americans at every level of income.
9. In a 2009 poll of 900 African Americans and Hispanics conducted by Brilliant Corners Research, led by Obama Presidential Campaign and Democratic Pollster Cornell Belcher, 43 percent of these minorities cited either not knowing how to use the Internet or not seeing the need for the Internet as the reason why they are not online; however, 44 percent of these same respondents said they would be more likely to subscribe to Internet services if they were provided free lessons on how to use the technology and 30 percent would be more likely to adopt if they had more information about how they could benefit from going online.
10. There are more significant policy challenges and opportunities demanding FCC attention and cooperation with industry, such as reforming the universal service fund, expanding spectrum availability for commercial use, and improving digital literacy.
Monday, February 01
By Brad
Last week, James Rucker of the group Color of Change penned an op-ed for the Huffington Post taking aim at the position of some civil rights groups when it comes to net neutrality:
Net Neutrality is the principle that prevents Internet Service Providers from controlling what kind of content or applications you can access online. It sounds wonky, but for Black and other communities, an open Internet offers a transformative opportunity to truly control our own voice and image, while reaching the largest number of people possible. This dynamic is one major reason why Barack Obama was elected president and why organizations like ColorOfChange.org exist.
So I was troubled to learn that several Congressional Black Caucus members were among 72 Democrats to write the FCC last fall questioning the need for Net Neutrality rules. I was further troubled that a number of our nation’s leading civil rights groups had also taken positions questioning or against Net Neutrality, using arguments that were in step with those of the big phone and cable companies like AT&T and Comcast, which are determined to water down any new FCC rules.
Most unsettling about their position is the argument that maintaining Net Neutrality could widen the digital divide.
Today, Maximum Leverage Solutions President Navarrow Wright offered a rebuttal to Rucker’s op-ed, also on the Huffington Post:
We all know the fight today is between Google and the ISPs. And just because the arguments you make sound just like those made by Google and Public Knowledge, it doesn’t make you a bad guy. What I don’t understand though is why you are criticizing people who are looking for answers. You seem surprised that the CBC and civil right leaders are concerned that when the big companies fight each other the under served may lose?
Don’t you think the FCC should answer the questions raised by the civil rights leaders and CBC? Why is it wrong to ask the FCC to make sure the rules they are proposing will not widen the digital divide? Why is it wrong to ask the FCC to make sure the rules they develop will not lead to regressive pricing which would shackle poor people? Why is it wrong to ask that the costs be borne by the people that cause them and not by the underserved? Why are you so afraid of the answers to these questions?
Tuesday, January 26
By Brad
Broadband Breakfast has a good rundown of a Minority Media & Telecom Council event held yesterday at Howard University:
Blair Levin, an FCC alumni who has been tapped to oversee the current plans to get broadband throughout the nation, said he wants to ensure that the policies for the plan will not contribute to a second-class citizenship and digital literacy will not be denied to anyone.
Levin told attendees at the Broadband and Social Justice Summit that broadband to certain communities will not automatically remove the digital divide, but will remove the barrier to creating more equal opportunity. He noted that connecting those previously excluded from the internet can bring real results in education, employment, the nation’s physical health, political participation and civic engagement.
The full article is worth checking out.
By David
While the FCC sifts through comments from a reported 200,000 + people in response to its proposed net neutrality regulations, minority groups continue to voice concerns about the effect those regulations will have on the digital divide. Yesterday, groups of minority legislators circulated letters around Capitol Hill warning of unintended consequences from new regulations. Reports Multichannel News:
The Jan. 22 letters came from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, National Foundation for Women Legislators, National Organization of Black Elected Legislative Women, National Conference of Black Mayors and the National Association of Black County Officials.
The groups called closing the digital divide “one of the most pressing social and civil rights issue of our day.”
They asked President Obama to intercede to keep the FCC focused on a broadband plan that closes that divide and does not include any new rules they say could threaten that end.
Friday, January 22
By David
The Hispanic Institute has released a new report on broadband adoption and minority communities. Multichannel News looks at some of the report’s findings:
[W]hile English-dominant Latinos subscribe to broadband services at a higher rate than non-Hispanic whites (68% of those surveyed having broadband services at home), Spanish-dominant Latinos lag well behind, with only 32% using the Internet in any form in 2006, compared to 78% of English-dominant Latinos and 76% of bilingual speakers.
The full Hispanic Institute report, Toward Access, Adoption & Inclusion: A Call for Digital Equality and Broadband Opportunity, is available online.
Tuesday, January 19
By Bruce
At the Huffington Post, Navarrow Wright, President of Maximum Leverage Solutions, has a must-read post breaking down the negative effects net neutrality could very well have on minorities and the urban poor:
The FCC is playing a dangerous game here, and the people who have the most to lose are already the socially and economically disenfranchised members of our national community - low-income, rural, urban, non-English speaking, tribal, minority, underserved and underserved populations. Neither the Commission nor the American people can rightly afford to preoccupy themselves with corporate interests over the greater priority interests of people. As responsible citizens, we have an obligation to speak out for and protect the interests of those who are not already digitally connected. I applaud the minority elected officials, the civil rights leaders and the consumer groups who are making their voices heard. I encourage the FCC to listen to the people.
Friday, January 15
By Brad
IiA Co-Chairman Bruce Mehlman has a new column in Fierce Wireless on digital literacy and closing the digital divide. Check it out and join the discussion, which is already underway.
Friday, January 08
By Bruce
A new report from market research firm Pike & Fischer (via Broadcasting & Cable) estimates that new high-speed Internet subscriptions may drop by as much as 10% this year. The firm also predicts that home penetration will reach 65%, leaving 35% unconnected.
Wednesday, January 06
By Brad
Via Broadcasting & Cable, a coalition of minority women’s organizations — including the Asian American Justice Center, the Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership, and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators — are calling on the FCC to take the digital divide into account as it moves forward with proposed net neutrality regulations.
From the coalition’s letter to the FCC:
As organizations that serve communities that are among the most severely impacted by a lack of access to technology, we urge you to keep your number one focus on the need to get everyone connected. We are concerned that some of the proposed regulations on the Internet could, as applied, inhibit the goal of universal access and leave disenfranchised communities further behind. We are also concerned that some proposed regulations could inhibit investments being made by companies employing hundreds of thousands of workers and connecting millions to the opportunities that broadband technology affords to those in our community – from telemedicine to distance learning to applying for jobs online.
By David
CNet reports on a new survey on Internet usage from the Pew Research Center (PDF), which finds that 74% of adult Americans are online. That’s the good news. The bad news is the digital divide remains very much in place, with 76% of white Americans online compared to 59% of African Americans and 55% of Hispanic Americans.
Monday, January 04
By Bruce
Broadband Breakfast reports on a recent FCC field hearing at the University of Chicago. The topic: How broadband can affect small businesses:
“When discussing the digital divide, small businesses are often overlooked,” said Norma Reyes, commissioner of the department of business affairs and consumer protection for the city of Chicago.
“Small businesses are really the engine of job creation in the U.S., and they have been for a long time,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski explained at the hearing.
“The statistics are really amazing. Small businesses inject about a trillion into the American economy. Small businesses have created on a net basis, over 93% of new jobs over the past 15 years.”
Wednesday, December 23
By David
A new report from Pew has some encouraging news about Internet use in the Hispanic community:
From 2006 to 2008, internet use among Latino adults rose by 10 percentage points, from 54% to 64%. In comparison, the rates for whites rose four percentage points, and the rates for blacks rose only two percentage points during that time period.
Latinos still trail whites in Internet use, but the Pew report shows that the gap is diminishing. Unfortunately, when it comes to broadband adoption at home, the Hispanic community saw very little change — from 79% of Internet users in 2007, to 81% in 2008.
The full Pew report is available here (PDF)
Friday, December 11
By Brad
Jimmy Lynn of JLynn Associates has posted a brief wrap up of his participation in yesterday’s IIA Broadband Symposium:
The symposium started with a terrific opening presentation by the outstanding pollster, Cornell Belcher (he gained much fame as the pollster for the Obama presidential campaign last year). His presentation clearly showed the need for the adoption of broadband, particularly in the under-served African-American and Hispanic communities.
By Brad
IIA Co-Chairman David Sutphen sat down with The Root to talk about minorities, and the need to increase both broadband access and adoption:
TR: How do you see creating wider access to broadband? Do you do it through legislation or the private effort?
DS: I think it’s a kind of an all-hands-on-deck approach at this point. For the first time, you have an administration committed to a national broadband plan. The goal is to come up with policy that will facilitate universal broadband. You have a broad cross-section of industries that make up Broadband for America, the goal being to reach 100 percent access and adoption.
It’s a perfect illustration of an issue which there really is mutual benefit to both government and private industry to work collaboratively in areas where businesses can’t get any type of return. Maybe that’s where the government, with the $7 billion of stimulus money [allocated to technology] can make some of the initial investments that allows private industry to come in, after the fact, and make sure that if you’re in a rural community or a Native American reservation that you still have an opportunity to get connected.
Check out the full interview.
Monday, December 07
By Bruce
As the deadline for the release of a national broadband plan quickly approaches, a coalition representing minority communities has released a report outlining steps that can be taken to erase the digital divide.
The report, “Toward Access, Adoption and Inclusion: A Call For Digital Equality and Broadband Opportunity,” was issued by the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, the National Caucus of Native American State Legislators, and the National Pacific American Caucus of State Legislators. From Business Wire:
“Even where service is available, if the proposition of adopting broadband is too expensive, people will not use it,” the report said. It urged policymakers to address affordability through a combination of government initiatives, programmatic reforms, incentives for private sector action, and public-private partnerships.
It warned against policies that might shift costs to the poor or “over-burden low-volume broadband users with the costs of maintaining services for high-volume users.”
“Before any new policy regime is implemented, we must fully understand the potential socio-economic implications of its implementation,” the report added. The lawmakers also called for “a system of checks and balances that encourages, rather than dissuades, private investment in broadband deployment and innovation.”
Thursday, November 05
By IIA
IIA Co-Chairman David Sutphen has penned a column for Fierce Telecom on reducing the “digital divide.” Using a recent FCC hearing and informal roundtable discussion as starting off points, Sutphen writes:
The disparity in broadband adoption rates between caucasians and people of color is well-documented. A panelist at the FCC hearing tagged adoption at about 60 percent for the general population, but only 43 percent for minorities. That 20 percent delta is a wide gap—too wide—aptly recognized by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps as the “digital divide.”’
None of the challenges presented in rural or urban America are unconquerable. Many will take time, money and understanding before 100 percent of all Americans enjoy the benefits of broadband.
Check out Sutphen’s entire column at Fierce Telecom.
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