The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the digital divide in the United States, dramatically affecting the ability of families and households without high-speed internet service to fulfill basic needs, such as health, education, and safety. Because the pandemic is unlikely to subside anytime soon, Congress and the administration must take bold and meaningful strides to expand broadband access for all Americans. An important step in eliminating the digital divide is to ensure that we have accurate national broadband coverage maps.
Here, details matter. No one seems to have a true handle on the real numbers measuring the size of the divide. The FCC estimates that 18 million Americans lack access to broadband, but experts — even the FCC’s own commissioners — have criticized the agency’s flawed data collection and analysis practices. Meanwhile, BroadbandNow Research estimates that 42 million Americans “do not have access to wired or fixed wireless broadband,” and Microsoft estimates that up to 162.8 million Americans “do not use the internet at broadband speeds.” In order to bridge the digital divide, we need to be able to rely on national broadband coverage maps to paint an accurate picture of what is happening in our communities, especially in communities of color.
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