The most obvious definition of the “digital divide” is a binary one: Either you have internet access, or you don’t.
But that simplistic approach doesn’t capture the nuances of why an individual or household doesn’t have internet access, and whether availability is their only barrier to adoption.
“There are many ways to measure the divide. In fact, there are multiple divides,” says the Internet Society, which offers up a number of ways to assess the digital divide. Availability is the first one, and is related strictly to whether connectivity infrastructure is present to be able to connect the end-user household to the internet. While improving availability is the obvious starting point for defining and mapping the digital divide, it isn’t the only factor in play to actually close the gap.
Other aspects of the digital divide are:
–Affordability, including the cost of broadband service compared to other essential goods and services, and what percentage of a user’s income has to go toward paying for them. Affordability has come into sharp focus during the Covid-19 pandemic, first leading to the establishment of the Emergency Broadband Benefit program through the Federal Communications Commission, which helped subsidize the cost of broadband services for low-income households with a $50-per-month credit ($75 per month if the household was on Tribal lands). Congress eventually replaced the EBB with a new, ongoing program: the $14 billion Affordable Connectivity Program, which offers a $30-per-month subsidy of broadband services for non-Tribal households and maintains the $75-per-month subsidy on Tribal lands.
–Quality of the service. How much speed is available to a given household, and is it enough for what they need? As analyst firm RSV found in a report for the Fiber Broadband Association, low-income areas of the country tend to also have the lowest available service speeds. And this goalpost is constantly moving, with networks in high-density areas more likely to receive privately financed upgrades to support additional capacity and performance. The Federal Communications Commission still technically defines “broadband” service as one that meets minimum speeds of 25 Mbps in the downlink and 3 Mbps in the uplink, although new federal funding programs established in the past couple of years have focused on achieving at least 100/20 Mbps or up to gigabit speeds.
The FCC’s 12th Measuring Broadband America report on fixed (wired or wireless) internet access, meant to be an annual “ongoing rigorous nationwide study of consumer broadband performance in the United States”, found that as of late 2021, ISPs were advertising service tier download speeds ranging from 100 Mbps to 1.2 Gbps, up 59% from the previous report—and they were meeting or exceeding those advertised speeds, the majority of the time.
The underlying technology is also a huge factor in the performance of the service. The FCC’s report found that the weighted mean advertised speeds for DSL connections were 24 Mbps, compared to 305 Mbps for cable and 510 Mbps for fiber-based connectivity.
–Relevance to the end-user and/or community. Is there content that the end-users are interested in, are there locally available apps, and is the content in a language or mode that the end-user can understand? What kind of learning curve do users face in picking up new digital skills in order to use the internet? This can be particularly challenging for users whose primary language is not English, who have a disability, or who are disinclined toward new technology adoption. Do users think that the internet will be useful for them—useful enough to pay for it and learn how to make use of it?
A recent analysis of data from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Internet Use Survey showed that a significant majority—58%—of an estimated 24 million offline households, reported that their main reason for not using the internet at home is that they had no need or interest in doing so. The respondent with this point of view was likely to be around 60 years old and white, with no postsecondary education.
–Access to equipment. While it may seem like smartphones are ubiquitous, they aren’t necessarily always the best option for accessing, interacting with and relaying information for online work, school or services like telemedicine. NTIA has noted that a “computer with a relatively large screen and appropriate input methods … is typically considered the superior tool for important tasks like doing homework and working remotely.” NTIA’s Internet Use Survey noted that while wealthier households may have both mobile data and fixed home internet service, people in lower-income households are more likely to rely exclusively on mobile data plans. And there were notable disparities in device use. Laptop use by children was up from 2019 in the survey, likely due to remote learning. But only 54% of Americans with disabilities reported using a PC or tablet, compared with 70% who did not report having a disability. The gap in PC and tablet usage between white Americans and Hispanic or black Americans narrowed from 2019 to 2021, NTIA said. More than 70% of white, non-Hispanic Americans reported that they used a tablet or PC to access the internet in 2021, while 57% of black Americans reported the same (up from 55% in 2019) and 54% of Hispanic Americans (up from 50% in 2019).
The Internet Society also pointed to security/privacy and digital literacy as additional gaps that can widen digital disparities, so that individuals and communities can’t take equal advantage of the economic, health and educational opportunities afforded by internet access.
Looking for more perspective on the state of the digital divide in the U.S. and if/when it will finally be closed? Register for the upcoming RCR Wireless News webinar “Getting to ubiquity: The urban and rural digital divide” featuring A10 Networks and Ericsson.
