{"id":10216,"date":"2025-04-11T07:41:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T07:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10216\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T07:41:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T07:41:17","slug":"covid-internet-connectivity-crisis-has-eased-for-most-families-but-risks-remain-the-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10216\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID Internet Connectivity Crisis Has Eased For Most Families, But Risks Remain \u2013 The 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cleveland had a connectivity crisis. Detroit too.<\/p>\n

When the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered schools in 2020, students were suddenly thrust into a world of online classes at home. That wasn\u2019t an easy switch, even for affluent students with their own computers and internet service at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in high-poverty cities like Cleveland and Detroit, it was a full blown crisis with thousands of students lacking computers and any internet access.<\/p>\n

Nearly half of families in the two cities had no broadband internet service \u2014\u00a0 strong connections to home devices such as computers, not just on mobile phones \u2014 making them the worst-connected cities in the U.S. in one ranking<\/a>. Other high-poverty cities, including Baltimore, Memphis and Newark, were close behind.<\/p>\n

Today, a little more than five years since the pandemic shut schools down, the crisis isn\u2019t as immediate \u2014 schools are open after all \u2014 but structural issues remain. Connectivity rates have improved nationally from about 71% of homes having broadband service in 2019 to more than 76% in 2023, still far from everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe pandemic highlighted for federal and state government that we have an issue,\u201d said Charlotte Bewersdorff, vice president of community engagement of the Merit Network,<\/a> a partnership between Michigan\u2019s universities that has worked to improve internet access even before Covid hit. \u201cA lot of our work prior to that was trying to convince people that there was an issue. The pandemic made it undeniable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gains were greater in the cities that had the greatest need. Cleveland and Detroit each went from having nearly half of homes without broadband down to a third, according to U.S. Census data.<\/p>\n

\"\"Internet connectivity has improved nationally since 2019, both in broadband home connections and through mobile phones, though most happened at the start of the pandemic and has since slowed. (Benton Institute for Broadband and Society)<\/p>\n

But now those gains are threatened.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most connectivity improvements were made in 2020 and 2021 \u2014 at the height of the pandemic \u2014\u00a0 but have since stalled. A key federal emergency effort to help families be online by paying part of their monthly bill has ended. Some long-term improvements using Covid relief money are planned but have been slow to start.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The programs are now in limbo as Congress has changed its focus and President Donald Trump ordered a pause in January on many infrastructure investments, including internet efforts with funding set aside in pandemic relief bills but hadn\u2019t started work yet. There\u2019s also controversy over satellite-based internet potentially becoming eligible for federal subsidies,<\/a> which would benefit Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the Starlink satellite company and close advisor of Trump.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe initial agility and efforts to help everybody get connected lost steam as other programs and other problems emerged,\u201d said Johannes Bauer, the chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission in 2023 and 2024. \u201cThere\u2019s a risk that the gains that were made very early on are actually diminishing over time, and new programs haven\u2019t yet filled that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Providing internet access for all has long been a goal of digital equity advocates, though it has never been easy to achieve. There\u2019s an infrastructure challenge: Homes need a service to connect to, which isn\u2019t always the case. Families need to be able to afford it. They need computers to use it. And they need to know how,<\/p>\n

All of these were hurdles when the pandemic hit, particularly for low-income areas.<\/p>\n

Schools and nonprofits scrambled to hand out laptops and mobile hotspots. Some parked buses with wifi service in neighborhoods. Learning pods sprouted at churches, community centers or clubs like the Y.M.C.A. or Boys and Girls Clubs,<\/a> where plexiglass dividers separated properly-spaced desks for students to take classes<\/a> on just-acquired laptops.Club staff came to work every day while school staff stayed home.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, \u201cdigital equity\u201d was a focus of legislators and the federal government, which soon offered billions in grants to help families pay internet bills and to add fiber optic lines and other internet infrastructure to disconnected areas.<\/p>\n

States created departments to oversee broadband investment, while the federal government created detailed maps of internet availability <\/a>block by block to help target aid. All 50 states created digital equity plans to compete for grants and help connect and educate underserved groups. Many states have also submitted plans and won early approval for plans to connect rural areas.<\/p>\n

But there are worries. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), created by Congress during the pandemic, gave a peak of 23 million homes $30 a month to reduce their internet bills, but Congress let the funding expire in 2024. And billions set aside for both rural and urban\u00a0<\/p>\n

infrastructure and for internet education is also uncertain while the Trump administration picks new leaders to oversee grants and Republicans in Congress seek to change rules guiding them.<\/p>\n

Beyond just pausing infrastructure projects overall, Trump\u2019s orders to half spending on \u201cDiversity, Equity and Inclusion\u201d in all parts of government threatens efforts to connect and train families under the Digital Equity Act, another pandemic response.<\/p>\n

Cleveland and Detroit highlight the mixed impact of the pandemic on connectivity. The two cities remain the worst-connected cities in the U.S., but they have also seen the greatest improvements in connectivity rates the last few years, according to census data analysis by digital equity advocacy group Connect Your Community.<\/a><\/p>\n

Those cities each slashed the percentage of families with no broadband service in half \u2013\u00a0 from around 46% in each city in 2019 to about 23% today, according to Connect Your Community and 2023 data from the census.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has gotten completely better,\u201d said Gloria Jones, director of the Boys and Girls Club near the King Kennedy public housing apartments in Cleveland. The club\u2019s pandemic learning pod once drew\u00a0 more than 30 students every day to do online lessons.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhen we first started out, there were kids that didn\u2019t have any access,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we had to set up. Or their internet was running slow. If you\u2019ve got three kids in the house and y\u2019all are trying to get on the same internet, it slows it down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, students mostly use the club WiFi only for an online tutoring program the club provides. She said families seem to have found low-cost service, even if not at ideal bandwidth, often from cell phone companies.<\/p>\n

\"\"Students work on an online tutoring program at a Boys and Girls Club in Cleveland early this month. When Cleveland\u2019s internet crisis was at its peak during the pandemic, more than 30 students did online classwork here every day. (Patrick O\u2019Donnell)<\/p>\n

The landscape has changed so much in Cleveland that the Cleveland Municipal School District, which had to scramble to buy its 35,000 students laptops and digital hotspots for the 2020-21 school year, <\/a>has cut its hotspot program way back. The district gave hotspots to 12,000 students \u2014 about a third of the district\u2019s enrollment \u2014 in 2023, but cut that in half to 6,000 by last spring because students weren\u2019t using them for months at a time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe turned them off,\u201d\u00a0 Curtis Timmons, the district\u2019s Chief Information Officer, said as budget cuts were announced last spring. \u201cIf you don\u2019t use a hotspot that tells us something \u2013 that\u2019s a waste of our money.\u201d<\/p>\n

The need for hotspots will reduce further with the district now offering students free internet service from Digital C, a unique non-profit the district has partnered with since 2020<\/a> that aims to provide low-cost broadband using wireless technology. It\u2019s a plan that has caught the attention of connectivity experts, who could not point to another new, public\u2014private partnership like it.<\/p>\n

Using private donations and federal pandemic relief dollars from the city, Digital C has nearly finished building a network across the city so it can offer 100 mbs service for $18 a month.<\/p>\n

The school district, city and county housing authority all allowed the company to put transmission towers on school buildings to keep costs down. About 1,300 families with students in the district now use it for free internet.<\/p>\n

Nichelle Montoney, guardian of two boys, 13 and 10, in the Cleveland school district said free service from Digital C makes a big difference for her. She kept her internet service after ACP ended, but her $50 monthly bill from the cable company was hard to pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have a choice,\u201d she said. \u201cThat bill barely got paid\u2026when you have to choose between paying the gas bill and the light bill. You pay just under the minimum requirement to put it towards the cable bill, so you can try to get just another 30 days and hope that it stays on. It was a struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other residents are still slow to sign on. The service has about 3,600 subscribers, out of about 90,000 households in its service area. Digital C still aims to eventually have 22,500 homes subscribed, nearly half of those without internet service now.<\/p>\n

Detroit also had major efforts to connect people. A partnership with the city, United Way and the Rocket Mortgage company, which is based in Detroit, rallied as \u201cConnect 313\u201d \u2014 named after the city\u2019s area code \u2014 to provide training and low cost laptops and hotspots to people. The city also used pandemic relief money to create 30 \u201ctech hubs<\/a>\u201d in libraries, community centers and non-profits around the city that remain open today for residents to access the internet.<\/p>\n

\"\"A flyer for Detroit\u2019s 2023 drive to have students sign up for federal money to help pay internet bills under the Affordable Connectivity Program. (Detroit Department of Innovation and Technology)<\/p>\n

It is also trying to add fiber optic cable to one neighborhood to improve connectivity there as a pilot project, but the plan has had trouble finding money and contractors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And it boosted its connectivity numbers with a major drive with television and radio commercials in late 2023 to sign up more residents for ACP internet benefits. Detroit and Cleveland were leading cities for internet subscribers using ACP<\/a>, but many more eligible families never took advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of like a last chance effort to show them (federal officials) this is a really big need, in the community,\u201d said Jenninfer Onwenu, a senior advisor in Detroit\u2019s Digital Equity and Inclusion office. \u201cThis is something that people were not aware of that they could be benefiting from. Imagine how many lives we could change by keeping this program in place. Unfortunately, that did not work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans opposed extending ACP as a \u201cwasteful\u201d part of a Democratic \u201cspending spree\u201d\u00a0 because it was costing billions and some estimates showed that only about 20 percent of recipients added internet service because of ACP,while most just enjoyed a discount on service they already paid for.<\/p>\n

Digital equity advocates worry, though, that new census data available this fall will show that families had to drop their service without ACP\u2019s help. Some loss is likely, with major communications companies reporting subscriber losses last year they attribute to ACP\u2019s end. Comcast, the nation\u2019s largest internet provider, reported losing 87,000 subscribers in one quarter last year mainly because ACP expired.<\/p>\n

John Horrigan of the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, a Chicago-area non-profit, estimates that about 11.5 million households are vulnerable to losing access <\/a>and that ACP bill reductions kept 8.8 percent of households nationally online.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe digital divide is not about being \u2018on\u2019 or \u2018off\u2019 the network,\u201d Horrigan said. That framing makes it seem as if once a household is on, it has permanently hurdled the barrier that separates disconnection from connection\u2026There is more uncertainty and churn in broadband at the low-income end of the market than some may appreciate.\u201d<\/p>\n

At-risk families like these are who Digital C in Cleveland is hoping to connect, though Detroit and other cities don\u2019t have a similar backstop.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir safety net is being cut,\u201d said Digital C\u2019s Edmonds. \u201cIn the absence of that funding, locally, we have an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans in Congress are also opposing grants to states and communities under the pandemic-passed Digital Equity Act and the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) for their focus on serving ethnic and racial minorities, both in who the projects will serve and who is hired to work on them. Such a race-based program is unconstitutional, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has charged.<\/p>\n

U.S. House members have also raised concerns about the BEAD infrastructure program, which has states with plans ready to begin, but are now on hold. A House subcommittee blasted that program in a March hearing it named \u201cFixing Biden\u2019s Broadband Blunder.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201dThe Biden-Harris Administration saddled the BEAD program with regulations unrelated to broadband to appease left-wing interest groups,\u201d said Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican, the sub committee\u2019s chairman. \u201cThese included technology preferences, burdensome labor rules, and climate change requirements, to name a few.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He and others want to ditch BEAD\u2019s old preference for fiber optic lines for a \u201ctechnology-neutral\u201d approach that would allow the allotted $42 billion to also cover satellite projects.<\/p>\n

Democrat Doris Matui of California immediately objected to what she called \u201csabotage\u201d of projects ready to begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans claim they\u2019re just being technology neutral,\u201d the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee said. \u201cBut can we trust this when the Trump administration has given Elon Musk nearly unfettered authority to further his business interests by taking over government contracts and dismantling agencies regulating his companies?\u201d<\/p>\n

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Cleveland had a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3161],"tags":[7033,6492,7034,3082,12,2887,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-10216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-cleveland","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-digital-divide","11":"tag-internet","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pandemic","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114318205463838618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}