The Digital Divide, Explained

It’s estimated that in the U.S. today, there are approximately 42 million people without a reliable internet connection. Geographic challenges play a role, but economic factors are just as crucial.

America’s digital divide has never been more apparent than it has in the face of COVID-19, as more individuals work remotely and children attend classes from home.

Until the digital divide is closed, the unconnected will remain particularly vulnerable in times of crisis. Should internet access be a basic human right?


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[freethink]

How do you think we should close the digital divide?

[thewitcher]

For the first time I, as an Indian, consider myself luckier than Americans to have such an affordable internet connectivity. Here you’ll get a 1GB/Day Cellular data subscription for as low as 2 dollars a month.

[niiico]

To think, America, of all places has problem with internet connectivity for the general public is mind-blowing if you think about all the tech services/ products we use everyday.

[alyssamartin]

This video completely neglected to look at the role that public libraries play in providing wifi for the public. Even with libraries closed right now, many left their wifi on so that it can be accessed in the parking lots. There clearly needs to be more done to close the digital divide, but library computers and wifi are one of those small solutions.

[John-]

This is top-of-the-line. I had the privilege of reading something similar, and it was top-of-the-line. "The Art of Meaningful Relationships in the 21st Century" by Leo Flint

[ayushrana]

Comparing to America, I really appreciate how JIO changed India wrt internet accessibility and cost.

[lindaalexander]

I often wonder why companies like Comcast cannot have cheaper broadband Everyone should be able to get WiFi for under $30 per month

[dl]

He should get one of those yagi antennas and put it on a giant pole he might be able to pick up wifi at his house that way but it'd be pricey. Verizon also sells a mobile broadband router and as a truck driver I'd use that and I could get internet everywhere even out in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming or wherever.

[Jacob-qrpl]

3:00
25 Megabits per second down and 3 Megabits per second up? That's a lot for just essentials. I'm running on 3 down and like 0.5 up and I game online. I think 10Mbps download would be enough.

[Conwayfan]

Here in appalachia Virginia, we have 1.5 mbps download and 0.5 mbps upload speeds for $89.00 per month, which is insane.

[JonnySnow]

Connecting to public wifis is the easiest way for hackers to hack into your computer and/or phone.

[Navesblue]

Crazy idea here, but hear me out: maybe we also don't overreact to a largely overblown pandemic that wasn't nearly as deadly as we were told and massively inconvenience everyone's lives to create such a divide by shutting down access to public resources in the first place? This is largely a self-inflicted problem being displayed here.

[thhisisnotherere]

Starlink, 1 gigabit down, lower latency then fiber optic, coming this year

[IDice]

I HAVE A DREAM. THAT EVERY PERSON ON THIS EARTH WILL HAVE ACCESS TO FAST RELIABLE INTERNET CONNECTION

[DavidRLentz]

The narrator sounds familiar. Who is she, please?

[k.thayerhardy]

Historically speaking, America’s digital divide traces back to Union Army civilian contractor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe’s first-ever test of his electromagnetic telegraph-equipped aerostat balloon on 18 June 1861 for America’s first-ever Union Army Balloon Corps. Lowe's telegraphed the following message to President Lincoln back at the White House: “This observation point commands an area nearly 50 miles in diameter....” However, Lowe's messaged failed to note that not a solitary soldier of the Union Army’s 185, 000 U.S. Colored Troops would ever serve in the Balloon Corps, leading to our collective psychological disorder that I call ‘Freedmen’s Sputnik Syndrome’. It is a trope on the “Sputnik Crisis” of the Cold War to analogize the U.S.S.R.-U.S. technological gap to America's black-white sociotechnical gap as well as a description of our collective maladaptation to centuries unresolved sociotechnical divisiveness in race relations via America's history of de jure segregation of weaponized information and communications technology (ICT) beginning with Lowe’s electromagnetic divide up to America’s digital divide. In short, our civil-military industrial complex broke it, so they need to fix it.

[HaiderAli-vtzb]

Starlink soon launching satellite based high speed low latency internet on global level, you can receive the internet with a simple antenna pointing towards sky
Just imagine receiving 100gb download speed at your home in remote village

[joshuaadamstithakayoutubel]

Let's get the first two figured out, shall we?

[Interopader]

Internet everywhere would be great. But not if it means microwaving my head like an egg.

[taddmaxwell]

Good thing elon musk internet is coming soon