Friday, April 02, 2021

Opinion: Biden may succeed where past presidents have failed in bridging the rural-urban broadband gap

Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump promised to bring affordable, reliable broadband access to all Americans, but didn't deliver. Joe Biden is making the same vow, but he might actually make it happen where past presidents have failed, editor-at-large Steven Levy writes for Wired.

That's because, Levy writes, Biden is doing something none of his predecessors did: he's seeking $100 billion in the new jobs-and-stimulus package to extend connectivity to underserved areas and asking for laws to introduce real competition to drive prices down. 

Biden has his work cut out for him since broadband in the U.S. is behind the rest of the developed world, Levy writes: "We still have huge connectivity deserts, particularly in rural areas. Also, compared to the rest of the world, we pay far too much for bits that get to us way too slowly. Millions in the US who connect wirelessly face punitive caps on data. This exacerbates a problem known as the digital divide, where less-well-off folks, especially communities of color, can’t afford or aren’t provided with high-speed internet, which has become a basic necessity. Of the 33 relatively wealthy countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US pays the second most for broadband, behind only Mexico. (South Korea pays a third as much.)"

Before the pandemic, the broadband gap held back productivity and access to resources among rural Americans and other segments, but the pandemic made it "a full-blown crisis" as broadband became critical for accessing school, work, health care and more, Levy writes. He goes into detail about what Biden's proposals entail and why large telecommunications corporations oppose it. Read more here.

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