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Community Union and NIU has been working to helped to bring families and children to use the digital tools for decades and is working with the IRREGULATORS; we put together this short video to focus on the underlying issues — as a first start.
IRREGULATORS v FCC is a legal challenge current in court, and it is critical as it can dramatically help to solve some of these issues.
Read our article: “I Can’t Do my Homework on this Smartphone”
This week October 7th, 2019 the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) called attention to “Digital Inclusion”, which includes the “Digital Divide” and the “Homework Gap”, among other related issues.
Definition of Digital Inclusion:
“Digital Inclusion refers to the activities necessary to ensure that all individuals and communities, including the most disadvantaged, have access to and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This includes 5 elements: 1) affordable, robust broadband internet service; 2) internet-enabled devices that meet the needs of the user; 3) access to digital literacy training; 4) quality technical support; and 5) applications and online content designed to enable and encourage self-sufficiency, participation and collaboration.”
The Digital Divide is one component of this mess, which usually refers to large gaps in the deployment of high speed broadband where rural areas were never properly upgraded to fiber optics and now many are forced onto more expensive and slow broadband and internet service options using the aging copper networks or satellite — or slow wireless service, (charged by the GB). In fact, in some areas, the infrastructure of the US was just left just to deteriorate and was never properly served by the incumbent phone company, which are mostly controlled by AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink. And, these issues are not just in rural areas, however. There is also a lack of affordable or available high speed broadband in the inner cities, especially in low income areas.
Why have large segments of America been left out or priced out of America’s Digital Future?
The IRREGULATORS’ approach is different. We have taken the FCC to court, IRREGULATORS v FCC, because the agency’s accounting rules have been manipulated and are used by the incumbent state phone companies that are controlled by AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink, to keep prices inflated and to claim that it is unprofitable to wire the rural areas and inner cities. Their plan has been to substitute their wireless services, which are more profitable, mainly because the networks they are using are mainly funded (cross-subsidized) by local phone customers.
To add insult to injury, 5G Wireless is just the latest bait-and-switch that is not profitable once the construction budgets that should have been used to upgrade cities and rural areas are halted and returned. And, with a range of a few city blocks and requiring a fiber optic wire, every mention of 5G serving rural areas and fixing the digital divide should remind the reader that the companies are using new-tech-shiny-bauble hype to get regulatory favors that they do not deserve; this is not about bringing affordable high speed broadband internet to America.
Before we discuss why IRREGULATORS v FCC is critical and how it can dramatically help to solve some of these issues, let’s discuss where we are in America.
The FCC and the politicians really care; FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said so many times.
Read the rest of this article: “I Can’t Do my Homework on this Smartphone”