If you don’t vote, you lose the right to complain. And possibly to your internet.

How representatives, telecom giants, and bad legislation are building us a more divided future

By Karen Heredia

Imagine driving around trying to find a McDonald’s with WiFi in order to edit your resume and apply for a job… on your phone. Or taking a bus to a public library and having to wait in line to use the computers in order to finish your homework assignments on the weekend. For millions of Americans this is an everyday reality — both rural and urban communities either have internet service that is too slow or too expensive (or both), or they don’t have internet providers offering service in their area at all.

These scenarios might seem surprising, given that seemingly everyone is online, but in reality, there are parts of the country that have to go through many more steps before they are able to connect. In fact, 34 million Americans lack internet access at home. And as most of us know, smartphones are not enough, both because of the difficulty in trying to do more complex tasks on tiny screens and the data caps that many people have with their cell phone plans.

These 34 million Americans are left unconnected because of a web of misguided federal policies that has given discriminatory carte blanche to big telecom companies. Perhaps the biggest example of this was in December 2017 when the FCC under Ajit Pai removed the “Title II” classification, which had allowed the internet to be treated like an essential utility, and labeled it a Title I “luxury” instead. This is what the Net Neutrality discussion was all about. If the internet isn’t a utility — like electricity — then it’s not an essential public resource, which in turn means that consumers don’t need to be protected from things like digital redlining or regressive “no compete” laws at the state level.

Unsound policies are not unique to the federal level: thanks to decades of lobbying, a wave of state laws were created to benefit corporate telecom giants and hobble innovation at the state and local levels too. This means that whereas your local government could usually come in and say, “If AT&T won’t connect us, then we’ll find a public solution,” local and state governments are now hamstrung by legislation that was bought by telecom companies.

This is known as crony capitalism, and it’s killing the free market’s most hallowed institution: competition. Telecom companies get to decide whether or not they offer internet services to huge parts of the country — if you’re too rural or in a low-income area, they can decide you’re not worth the trouble and cost of connection.

While this has all supposedly been in the name of free market economic policy and promoting innovation, these measures haven’t helped improve access, affordability, or internet service quality for Americans. It’s simply ensured that telecom giants get to play god with our right to internet access.

It’s 2018. When we have policymakers at all levels talking about weaving together the Internet of Things technologies to create Smart City infrastructures in order to boost economic development, we can safely say that the internet is in no way a luxury — it’s a necessity and a utility. Yet during this midterm election season, candidates rarely mention this basic issue.

By letting telecom corporations keep rural and low-income America in the dark, the FCC and our other representatives are creating policy that needlessly deepens existing social, economic, and racial divides. Ultimately, both rural and urban Americans lose out because policymakers fail to acknowledge internet access as a necessary utility service that should be available to everyone.

After all, increasingly this is about an individual’s ability to fully participate in society: Who has access to the internet is directly tied to who can share and consume information.

Invisible Dividing Lines

For all of its flaws, the internet is still a major driver of economic progress at the individual, city, and state levels and leaving anyone behind has serious consequences. Given the full-force telecom lobbying, political will is needed to ensure that everyone in this country has high-speed and affordable access to the internet.

That’s why I spent a year working with Maria Smith, an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, to produce Dividing Lines, a video series that presents the stories of families from across the country to show why access to high-speed broadband networks is as important as electricity in today’s America. Because we know that under-connection and lack of access deepens socioeconomic divides, the series also demonstrates how some communities have found creative ways to invest in fiber-optic infrastructure networks, lowering consumer costs and creating new educational, health, and economic opportunities for everyone.

Dividing Lines highlights the multiple digital divides that exist in this country, and provides audiences with an entryway into challenging their elected representatives to protect access to quality high-speed internet.

The final video in the Dividing Lines series will be premiering at Connected New England, this Thursday November 8. This convening is bringing together federal, state, and local policymakers, along with community leaders and policy experts, to discuss solutions for how to ensure everyone in this country has access to affordable, fast internet service in their homes. Follow along and join in the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #ConnectedNE.

Support A Digital New Deal

In past eras, great national efforts led to universal electricity and telephone service. Now, the nation could use an ambitious plan to improve internet service, drive down costs, and expand access to the internet for everyone. Fortunately, there are legislators, advocates and community members working together across the country in order to find solutions at every level of government that improve options for consumers.

Internet access and other infrastructure issues are rarely mentioned on the campaign trail, but these are basic issues that matter to so many Americans. Which is another reason why the midterms are important. Who you elect to represent you can promote local solutions and stand up to big telecom lobbyists. There is a direct connection between the ballot box and your internet router: Make internet access a voting issue, and tell your representatives to ensure telecom companies provide high-quality internet access to all communities or get out of the way.