- All right, so we're gonna try
the first place that's closest to us on the map.
We generally have to go and seek out
a faster Wi-Fi solution,
so it's what we're going to do today.
- Jeff Wiggins is on the hunt for an internet connection.
- Yeah, we might have to hunt for another one.
They may not want us here.
- Jeff isn't the only one.
More than 40 million Americans
don't have access to the internet,
meaning that as the country responds
to the COVID-19 pandemic, many are unable to access work,
attend school, or get basic necessities from home.
It's a problem that has troubled cities and towns,
big and small, in the US for years,
with little momentum toward a solution, until now.
Across the country, rural areas are expanding
broadband internet access,
while cities work to make connecting
more affordable for those who have been left behind.
- These are problems that have existed for a long time,
but what this crisis has done
is fast-forward us into a broadband future.
Crises change society.
The opportunity here is to recognize
that broadband is absolutely essential.
(lilting music)
- In the wake of COVID-19 in the US,
the internet has become a lifeline for millions of people,
but there are many in the country who have to go
to great lengths in order to get online at all.
- Let's see if we can get this laptop connected
to some parking lot Wi-Fi, and get some work done.
What do you think, Ben?
- Yeah! - All right.
- Jeff lives outside of Columbus, Ohio,
and is just out of range of service
for the major internet providers in the area.
- Right here, about 900 feet away,
is where the service area stops for our local cable company.
- While he's able to get most of his own work done at home
by maxing out an expensive cell phone plan
which gets him a single bar of service,
it's not enough for his eight-year-old son
to log onto his online classroom.
- It's not going.
- No, it has to reach all the way to the end, to the X.
- Oh.
- So Jeff and Ben venture out searching for a connection,
using an open Wi-Fi tracker,
often only to be met with more frustration.
- There's a posted no trespassing, keep out sign.
I think we're striking out again.
There's massive propane tanks in the back,
and we're not gonna stick around here
to find out if there's a Wi-Fi signal or not.
This doesn't seem like a good place to conduct class today,
so I think we're just gonna move on
to the next one and see what we can find.
- We face a national broadband challenge,
but it requires multiple solutions.
- This is Jonathan Sallet, a senior fellow
at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.
- This crisis has shown us
that we have multiple digital divides,
and that they threaten to become a digital chasm.
- In Ohio, like in much of the US, getting people connected
breaks down broadly into two buckets.
One requires bringing internet access
to places it's never been before,
and the other is making service
more affordable where it already exists.
The problems are different, so the solutions are too.
In rural areas, solutions often come
out of small, local efforts.
- Residents on Bent Mountain just got
high-speed wireless broadband, thanks to one individual.
- I was talking to a gentleman in western Virginia
who works in a local business, lives on a mountaintop.
And nobody had broadband, so he figured out
how to build his own small ISP.
Now there's 20 families on a mountaintop in Virginia
getting broadband that didn't.
We might think, "Well, that's too small a solution.
"We need one big solution."
But we gotta understand these small solutions add up.
- Meanwhile, the issue in America's big cities
is most often a matter of making
internet subscriptions affordable and accessible.
In Detroit, a city with one of the sharpest
digital divides in the country,
many students were left adrift
after being required to attend class from home.
But in facing this challenge,
the community saw an opportunity to launch a response
that would lead to permanent connections.
- We know that up to 90% of our families did not have
either a device and internet connection
that would allow them to access the online curriculum.
(lilting music)
Our children are short of the financial resources
needed to educate them.
- Pamela Moore leads the Detroit Public Schools Foundation,
which in June, began sending out 51,000 computer tablets,
one for every public school student in the district.
The devices come with a six-month
internet plan and technical support.
- After six months, families will be transitioned
to low-cost internet plans
that are available in the city of Detroit.
If a family says that they cannot afford that plan,
Detroit Public Schools Community District
is willing to cover that cost.
This was always on the long, long list of things to do
and things to improve and things to address,
but without this crisis I do not think the call to action
would have looked quite the way it looks now.
- In American history, there's all sorts of services
we understand have to be available to everybody.
Congress creating the Post Office
so everybody could communicate by mail,
public education so everybody could go to K-12 school.
These are commonplace ways to proceed in American history,
but we haven't brought that ethos to broadband.
- We just finished watching a five-minute video.
It was posted five days ago.
It's the first time that we're seeing it,
so we're a little behind the times, but hey.
We managed to get some connection.
- I saw a sign that says stay at home and stay healthy.
- Yeah, but we can't stay at home.
We've gotta come get Wi-Fi, huh?
- Yeah.
- People need to make their voices heard
about the kind of broadband they require.
This nation has always done its best,
but it understands that one comes out of many.
We have many problems now, but we can build
one really important broadband future if we come together.
And I'm hopeful that will happen.
Thanks for watching.
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