Pandemic Builds Momentum for Broadband Infrastructure Upgrade; The Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2020

John D. McKinnon and 

Ryan Tracy,

 The Wall Street Journal; Pandemic Builds Momentum for Broadband Infrastructure Upgrade 

Coronavirus crisis shows need for widespread high-speed internet in U.S. homes

"The coronavirus pandemic is boosting momentum for major broadband legislation, highlighting the widespread lack of high-speed internet in U.S. homes at a time when it has become more essential than ever."

Digital divide persists with online portals for cancer patients; Reuters, February 14, 2018

Lisa Rapaport, Reuters; Digital divide persists with online portals for cancer patients

"“Internet access is not uniform across populations,” said senior study author Dr. David Gerber, a researcher at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

“There exists a `digital divide,’ with certain groups having lower access to broadband Internet than others,” Gerber said by email.

The sheer volume of information in recent years may be overwhelming patients and discouraging them from using these portals, Gerber said."

The least connected people in America; Politico, February 7, 2018

Margaret Harding McGill, Politico; The least connected people in America

[Kip Currier: A must-read primer on the State of the Digital and Tech Divides in America AND a compelling call for long-promised, long-overdue action on Broadband Internet access for all Americans.]

"As broadband internet becomes more and more important in the U.S. — the way Americans do everything from apply for jobs to chatting with their relatives to watching TV — one gap has become more glaring: the difference between those who have broadband and those who don't. An estimated 24 million people, about 8 percent of Americans, still have no home access to high-speed internet service, defined by the Federal Communications Commission as a download speed of 25 megabits per second. (That's what the FCC says allows telecommuting or streaming high-definition video.) The overwhelming majority of those people live in rural areas, like farms or in big, poorly served areas like this one.

The shorthand for fixing this problem is “closing the digital divide," and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says it's his top priority. But it has been a high-priority problem for years and remained persistently out of reach for reasons rooted in the structure of our telecommunications system itself. Internet access in the U.S. depends almost entirely on private companies; unlike other crucial services like postal delivery or electric power, it isn't considered the government's job, and isn't regulated as a public utility. But the limits of that system have become painfully apparent: Companies can't make money by running expensive wires to few customers, and a complex tangle of incentives offered by the government hasn't solved the problem in towns like Orofino.

Nowhere is the lack of broadband access more acute than in places like this: Rural Indian reservations have lower rates of coverage than anywhere else in the nation. About 35 percent of Americans living in tribal lands lack broadband access, according to the most recent report by the FCC. In Idaho, the FCC estimates that 83 percent of the tribal population lacks broadband, making the Nez Perce tribe among the least-connected groups in the country."