The great broadband divide

High-speed Internet access has been the foundation of work, school, commerce, church services, and even doctor's visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is great … IF you have high-speed Internet. Yet, about half of Americans do not. David Pogue reports on the broadband divide in our country, where for many high-speed internet is either unavailable or unaffordable.

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[The_General_Zubas]

Net Neutrality died so the Internet could be turned into a means of Advantage and Disadvantage.

The Internet needs to become a Utility.

[maryscott]

We need to seriously look at this now especially with kids depending on it for school

[wanderingangelstudio]

Broadband absolutely should be considered a utility and made affordable.

[MrAndrewCreech]

Eisenhower’s Federal Highway act literally paved the way for the transportation business over 50 years ago. We need a leader who understands the relationship between economic growth and a robust infrastructure. It’s time for a Federal data highway program.

[dinabern]

Resources? There are resources, clearly, if billions have been given to companies that have not done what they were supposed to do. The problem is CORRUPTION!!!

[Cloudwalker]

I'm glad this is being reported on.

[karanvora]

I pay less than 10 dollars per month for a 100 megabit sub 2ms fiber in a '3rd world country'.

[daklakdigital]

Vietnam has almost 90% 3- cell coverage, about 70% 4G coverage. Most of SaiGon has fibre optic service; I have a summer cottage 70 kilometres from the nearest town but I have fibre optic service.

Fibre service is available in all towns and in sparsely populated areas have radio-based or satellite Internet.

[LauraCampbell]

You should do a follow-up to this story by interviewing the people who started SandyNet in Sandy, Oregon. In that city, internet is a public utility.

[malenotyalc]

Ending net neutrality made it worse too, as ISP can slow certain sites or reduce your bandwidth pretty much at their discretion.

[anne]

We are finally seeing that we have more in common with third world countries than we ever believed before ...

[thinkingmobility]

This lack of access is based on the cost of building out the service (duh), so since internet is now a necessity for the efficient delivery of information and services (such as tele-medicine and even shopping online), then we must treat the internet like we did electricity (e.g. Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933). Even if you can access the internet though, the monthly cost for many people in the US is a burden.

[cici]

I live in Austin TX, and I'm terribly ashamed that the school district had to send out school buses with portable hotspots. I appreciate that the school district came up with a temporary solution, but I'm disturbed that they have to. This city is being managed in an awful way. Like the segment said, we are a high tech city. No one should be without access to the internet, for any reason.

[lawyermahaprasad]

Kind of feels good that there’s really affordable standard quality internet (2-40mbps) average, available in all the corners of India.

[koleyw]

Unbelievable in the United States, greed rules. There is a duopoly in my area, ATT or Comcast, and they are both operate using unethical business tactics which include shady contracts, lying CSR, unresponsive service, unreliable, inconsistent broadband power. I only get 6mbps and a lot of the time I only get around 4 with ATT. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING???

[TheSteve]

I live in rural Wisconsin and our internet speed just got doubled. From 5 to 10 mbps. Still less than half of the broadband “minimum”

[IsakGIR]

Ajit is half if the problem. He should resign.

[The_General_Zubas]

8:55 Agreed.

We need Internet for all

[kang]

Only if roosevelt was today's president....

[GCEZ]

The first thing I thought of was Sam Kinison screaming "You need to live where the food is!" But this isn't funny. I did not know there was actually places like this in the USA... Get these people connected! The internet is the original "New Normal"!