Background Policy Briefing Paper

As adopted in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

As the UN declaration explains above, the right to disseminate and receive information is an essential human right.  It is a right that helps to define ourselves as human beings and political actors, helping individuals to participate and define in one’s own culture and identity.  In addition, in the modern economy, just distribution of access to communication and information is essential to promote economic justice. 

Increasingly in the U.S., and across the world, the fundamental right to communicate means internet access.  And not just any internet access—high speed Internet access. 

What is Broadband?

Broadband is high speed Internet access.  Services that offer broadband are cable internet and DSL from a telephone company.  Slower access is dial-up over a telephone line.  While most Americans used to access the Internet over a traditional telephone line, today using a dial-up modem makes going online virtually impossible (as our Betty found out!).   Today internet web sites use complicated graphics, files are larger, and even email relies on constant connectivity for web-based functions.  Not having broadband is almost like not having the internet at all.

Why is Internet Access Important?

Broadband and our Communities.  Today, from everything to scheduling a special garbage pickup to driver’s license renewal to voting locations are available on line. Without access to the web, parents cannot communicate with teachers or principals and children can’t do homework assignments.  Because of uneven availability of online access, information about local issues—whether that is a crime report, an environmental hazard, or an upcoming local election--is easily and readily available to some people, but others are left out.  

Broadband and Economic Justice.  Without adequate internet access, how does a person acquire job skills, employment information, education, and dialogue with potential employers or peer networks?  Some individuals must congregate at job sites or stand in long lines to get a job, while others can review job postings, sort by geographic location, post a resume and email thank you notes from the comfort of their homes.  Unfortunately, jobs that are more likely to economically support a family or offer health benefits are more likely to be found on line. 

Broadband and Equal Access to Health Care.  Our country is currently debating the use of new technologies in a variety of arenas.  For example, Barack Obama’s proposals to expand health care for all Americans relies to a significant degree on adoption moving health care records to an electronic platform.  These records will likely be complex and need to be securely guarded to protect privacy—accessing them could be difficult without broadband.  Over the long term, this means individuals without broadband access could receive poorer quality health care than those with that access. 

Who has high speed Internet and who doesn’t?

Over the past years, there have been many efforts to increase the number of people on line.  This hard work has been somewhat successful—today more than 83 million households are online.  But just as some populations are able to join the conversation, technological developments move the goal posts. 

Because today, being on line isn’t enough, the quality of internet access is just as important.  Many people who do have Internet access have slow access via dial up connections over traditional telephone lines.  This type of access is like being forced to use a slide rule when others have calculators – sure they can do many of the same things, but at a much slower speed and fewer capabilities. 

Unfortunately, while broadband access could be a great opportunity to catch up, the groups who are most challenged are also left behind on the Internet.  For example, the Pew Center for Internet and American life collects detailed data about American’s use and provided some illustrations based on their surveys in 2009 (Home Broadband 2009 at 13-14).   While 88 percent of people who earn over $100,000 per year use broadband, only 35% of those who earn less than $20,000 have broadband.  Seventy-seven percent of individuals between 18 and 29 years of age have broadband, but only 30 percent of those over 65 years have broadband.  Eighty-three percent of college graduates use broadband, 52 percent of high school graduates use broadband, and 30 percent of those without a high school degree use broadband.   Sixty-five percent of whites use broadband, but only 46 percent of Blacks, and only 32 percent of Hispanics whose primary language is Spanish are even online, let alone have broadband. 

What are the roadblocks and the answers?

One of the most important stumbling blocks for many Americans is price and access to a computer.  The solution there is a combination of competition and subsidies.  First, we need multiple companies offering broadband to every household so that prices will come down.  We also need subsidies, like the programs currently offered to low-income people to help with telephone fees. 

In addition, 24 percent of Americans in rural areas are unable to obtain broadband access.  So an important part of the equation is either requiring companies to build networks that reach most of America, or providing public dollars –either federal or state—to ensure individuals are able to buy access no matter where they live. 

But one of the most startling roadblocks to broadband adoption is the fact that many people lack an interest – probably because they lack exposure and a helping hand to see what Internet access can offer.  Fifty percent of those not online and without broadband believe that Internet access and broadband access are irrelevant to them.  And 13 percent state it is just too complicated. 

For too long, the process of reaching out and educating traditionally disenfranchised communities has been left to volunteer efforts and the philanthropic community alone. Increasing access doesn’t just assist the people who are helped, we all benefit.  Just as the value of a telephone increases when we can reach more people by using it, the value of the Internet for all of us increases when we are all connected. 

What is being done?  What can we do?

As part of the national economic stimulus package, Congress and the Obama Administration have dedicated $7.2 billion toward enhancing broadband deployment and has directed the Federal Communications Commission to develop a national broadband plan by the end of 2009. 

Members of the So We Might See Coalition can engage in these processes by asking the administration to be sure to include all Americans in the broadband deployment initiatives.  We should encourage the government to systematically research how to help people learn and how to give them access to computers, not just down the street at the library, but in their homes.  Individuals need computers that work and access to on-going support to keep them working.  Part of the solution would be establishment of local and national digital inclusion councils could work with other agencies and programs to promote digital inclusion principles in the fulfillment of their missions.  Another avenue would be to establish media literacy curriculum for secondary schools, along with technology literacy and digital media production.  In addition, a more robust infrastructure is needed for distributing computers and training and keeping in touch with people over time as their skills increase and they desire more knowledge.

Take action now!

>> Send Your letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce

>> Learn more about broadband on our resource pages.

>> How much do you know about Broadband access? Take our quiz to find out.