In 2005, when Lafayette, Louisiana was considering a community broadband network, it created an excellent report discussing how a publicly owned network can work to improve digital inclusion. Six years later, the report remains well worth reading.

Public ownership provides more tools for making sure advances in communications technology benefits everyone.

Report Overview

This Digital Divide committee is motivated by the vision of our community creating a future in which everyone is both able to and motivated to seize the full power of a fiber optic network. Such a network has the potential to transform the lives of citizens in ways similar to the deployment of electricity, radio, and television. In building its own fiber-optic based utility, Lafayette creates the opportunity for further unifying the people of this community and, potentially, to help bridge current divides among her citizens. A publicly owned network can lower barriers to full and equal participation by making a new and powerful communication technology available to every citizen at the lowest practical cost. In our times, the keys to participation and productivity lie in these rapidly developing technologies. We recognize that if Lafayette is to experience healthy growth and benefit fully from such new technologies, all her people will need to become equal partners in our endeavor. Lowering the barriers to such a partnership and engaging in vigorous and innovative educational efforts will help us realize our community’s full potential.

Barriers preventing entry into the world of computers and the World Wide Web include low income, fear or suspicion of technology, a lack of understanding of how useful technology can be, and absence of instruction concerning computers and the Internet. In addition, transportation to places where computers and Internet access are available to the public and knowledge that such places even exist are barriers for some. For others, the use of technology is simply not integrated into their identity and they see few models for its productive use in their communities.

Lafayette citizens most likely to be standing on the other side of the digital divide include people who have low incomes, who are elderly, less educated, or disabled, members of ethnic minorities, and any community members who have been traditionally marginalized or for any reason feel separated from the broader society.

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Susan Crawford published an excellent essay in the New York Times presenting her Looming Broadband Monopoly argument as a discussion of the coming digital divide between those with access to next-generation networks and those without.

These numbers are likely to grow even starker as the 30 percent of Americans without any kind of Internet access come online. When they do, particularly if the next several years deliver subpar growth in personal income, they will probably go for the only option that is at all within their reach: wireless smartphones. A wired high-speed Internet plan might cost $100 a month; a smartphone plan might cost half that, often with a free or heavily discounted phone thrown in.

The problem is that smartphone access is not a substitute for wired. The vast majority of jobs require online applications, but it is hard to type up a résumé on a hand-held device; it is hard to get a college degree from a remote location using wireless. Few people would start a business using only a wireless connection.

She identifies the problem as a lack of competition in the market while highlighting the role of lobbying from the wealthy cable companies to keep it that way:

The bigger problem is the lack of competition in cable markets. Though there are several large cable companies nationwide, each dominates its own fragmented kingdom of local markets: Comcast is the only game in Philadelphia, while Time Warner dominates Cleveland. That is partly because it is so expensive to lay down the physical cables, and companies, having paid for those networks, guard them jealously, clustering their operations and spending tens of millions of dollars to lobby against laws that might oblige them to share their infrastructure.

In this essay, her preferred solution is better federal regulation that would require companies that own networks to share parts of their infrastructure with competitors (to significantly reduce the problems of natural monopoly). Unfortunately, she did not explicitly discuss the solution of the communities building their own networks - a topic she has discussed at great length elsewhere in very positive terms. Her essay ties in nicely with the paper we...

Riverside, California, an innovative city of 300,000 in the eastern part of Los Angeles has been a broadband pioneer even though it sits in the shadow of tech centers like nearby Santa Barbara.   Riverside’s accomplishment as a city catching up with the information age was evident when it was selected as one of the top 7 Intelligent Communities Award in 2011 by New York-based Intelligent Community Forum.  

“It’s an honor to be selected as one of the top 7 cities in the world.  It comes down to a couple factors, what communities are doing with broadband, but... includes digital inclusion, innovation, knowledge workforce (of folks within your community) and marketing advocacy... We rank very high in all those categories.” - City CIO Steve Reneker [Gigabit Nation Radio]

The cornerstone the city’s SmartRiverside initiative is a free public wireless network which covers 78% of the city’s 86 square miles.  Established in 2007 by AT&T (which also offers DSL services in Riverside), the maximum speed of the network is 768kbps, which at just under 1Mbps is decent enough to surf the web and check emails.  However the road to providing free Internet access and bridging the digital divide wasn’t so easy for Riverside.  

The City issued a RFP in 2006 for a provider to deploy a citywide Wi-Fi network, with the goal of making the Internet accessible to users who can’t afford higher cost plans.  The City met with respondents and a speed of 512kbps or about half a megabit was initially quoted as an entry-level speed that would complement existing services rather than compete against them.  The contract was awarded to AT&T who hired MetroFi to build the network and charge the city a service cost of about $500,000 a year.  MetroFi went bankrupt after completing only 25 square miles and Nokia Siemens took over but only completed up to the present level of coverage. 

In 2007, the wifi network launched and began bridging the digital divide. Through the City’s digital inclusion efforts, not only were modest-income families able to obtain low cost or free PCs but also have means to use them with an Internet connection.  

After AT&T acquired a competitor and created AT&T Wireless Systems (AWS), it informed the...

Following a four day retreat in September of 2010, Consumers Union and the Center for Media Justice released a report called Building an Equity and Justice Movement for the Internet, Mobile Phones, and Future Networks: A summary of goals, policies, strategies, and best practices by and for groups working for Internet policies that ensure opportunity, democracy, and equity for all.

From the introduction:

This report is a brief summary of the Knowledge Exchange, written for participants and to share with the field. It reflects the open and frank discussions that took place during the convening, as well as the ease of communication among the group.

The words in this report are quoted, paraphrased, and combined from presentation and discussion notes. The document includes ideas raised by individuals as well as collectively agreed-upon points. Overall, the 2010 Knowledge Exchange reflects just one moment in time in the midst of ongoing, overlapping conversations on these issues.

This document is one of several publication projects emerging from the 2010 Knowledge Exchange that will be produced by CMJ. Strategy ideas, tools, case studies, and more will be available to our network members online through the MAG-Net website, www.mag-net.org.

Facts, statistics, and other data are as of September 2010. For up-to-date media/telecom policy and campaign information, visit www.centerformediajustice.org and www.mag-net.org. Convening agenda, participant list, and other related information can be found in the appendices, included at the end of the report.

Knowledge-Exchange-Building-Equity-Justice-Movement