- All right, so we're gonna try the first place that's
closest to us on the map. We generally have to go and seek out a faster Wi-Fi solution, so it's what we're going to do today. - Jeff Wiggins is on the hunt
for an internet connection. - Yeah, we might have
to hunt for another one. They may not want us here. - Jeff isn't the only one. More than 40 million Americans don't have access to the internet, meaning that as the country responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, many
are unable to access work, attend school, or get basic
necessities from home. It's a problem that has
troubled cities and towns, big and small, in the US for years, with little momentum toward
a solution, until now. Across the country,
rural areas are expanding broadband internet access, while cities work to make connecting more affordable for those
who have been left behind. - These are problems that
have existed for a long time, but what this crisis has done is fast-forward us into
a broadband future. Crises change society. The opportunity here is to recognize that broadband is absolutely essential. (lilting music) - In the wake of COVID-19 in the US, the internet has become a
lifeline for millions of people, but there are many in the
country who have to go to great lengths in order
to get online at all. - Let's see if we can
get this laptop connected to some parking lot Wi-Fi,
and get some work done. What do you think, Ben? - Yeah!
- All right. - Jeff lives outside of Columbus, Ohio, and is just out of range of service for the major internet
providers in the area. - Right here, about 900 feet away, is where the service area stops
for our local cable company. - While he's able to get most
of his own work done at home by maxing out an expensive cell phone plan which gets him a single bar of service, it's not enough for his eight-year-old son to log onto his online classroom. - It's not going. - No, it has to reach all
the way to the end, to the X. - Oh. - So Jeff and Ben venture out
searching for a connection, using an open Wi-Fi tracker, often only to be met
with more frustration. - There's a posted no
trespassing, keep out sign. I think we're striking out again. There's massive propane tanks in the back, and we're not gonna stick around here to find out if there's
a Wi-Fi signal or not. This doesn't seem like a good
place to conduct class today, so I think we're just gonna move on to the next one and see what we can find. - We face a national broadband challenge, but it requires multiple solutions. - This is Jonathan Sallet, a senior fellow at the Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society. - This crisis has shown us that we have multiple digital divides, and that they threaten to
become a digital chasm. - In Ohio, like in much of the
US, getting people connected breaks down broadly into two buckets. One requires bringing internet access to places it's never been before, and the other is making service more affordable where it already exists. The problems are different,
so the solutions are too. In rural areas, solutions often come out of small, local efforts. - Residents on Bent Mountain just got high-speed wireless broadband,
thanks to one individual. - I was talking to a
gentleman in western Virginia who works in a local business,
lives on a mountaintop. And nobody had broadband,
so he figured out how to build his own small ISP. Now there's 20 families on
a mountaintop in Virginia getting broadband that didn't. We might think, "Well,
that's too small a solution. "We need one big solution." But we gotta understand
these small solutions add up. - Meanwhile, the issue
in America's big cities is most often a matter of making internet subscriptions
affordable and accessible. In Detroit, a city with
one of the sharpest digital divides in the country, many students were left adrift after being required to
attend class from home. But in facing this challenge, the community saw an
opportunity to launch a response that would lead to permanent connections. - We know that up to 90%
of our families did not have either a device and internet connection that would allow them to
access the online curriculum. (lilting music) Our children are short of
the financial resources needed to educate them. - Pamela Moore leads the Detroit
Public Schools Foundation, which in June, began sending
out 51,000 computer tablets, one for every public school
student in the district. The devices come with a six-month internet plan and technical support. - After six months, families
will be transitioned to low-cost internet plans that are available in the city of Detroit. If a family says that they
cannot afford that plan, Detroit Public Schools Community District is willing to cover that cost. This was always on the long,
long list of things to do and things to improve
and things to address, but without this crisis I do
not think the call to action would have looked quite
the way it looks now. - In American history,
there's all sorts of services we understand have to be
available to everybody. Congress creating the Post Office so everybody could communicate by mail, public education so everybody
could go to K-12 school. These are commonplace ways to
proceed in American history, but we haven't brought
that ethos to broadband. - We just finished watching
a five-minute video. It was posted five days ago. It's the first time that we're seeing it, so we're a little behind
the times, but hey. We managed to get some connection. - I saw a sign that says stay
at home and stay healthy. - Yeah, but we can't stay at home. We've gotta come get Wi-Fi, huh? - Yeah. - People need to make their voices heard about the kind of broadband they require. This nation has always done its best, but it understands that
one comes out of many. We have many problems
now, but we can build one really important broadband
future if we come together. And I'm hopeful that will happen. Thanks for watching. For more stories like this one, check out Freethink.com. And be sure to subscribe for more great videos every week.
