Equal Access to the Internet Should Be a Basic Right
A recently concluded Digital Inclusion Summit in Kansas City highlighted the disadvantage residents face not having home broadband Internet access, especially school-age kids and job-seeking adults. As many as 25% of Kansas Citians and 70% of KCMO public school youth don't have home access , and it's good to know a digital inclusion coalition is emerging from the summit to fix this gap. Another fact from the summit shared during a presentation is that the uneven KC broadband landscape is common to other large metroplitan areas, like a report last week showing "some 800,000 New Jersey households with income of $35,000 or less, only 54 percent had broadband Internet access and 45 percent had no connection at all." So large projects to address the digital divide are needed. One such project by the Obama administration [possible NY Times registration required] proposes a solution to a problem "with fewer than half of American public schools connected to high-speed
