An interesting piece in Politic365 this week highlights a discussion at the “Job Creation and Education: Programmatic Efforts to Increase Broadband Adoption in African American Communities” panel at the 2012 National Urban League Annual Conference.
The low down is this: these days, without broadband, you are at a fundamental disadvantage. From the piece:
The panelists underscored that Internet was essential to living a meaningful life in the 21st century. Honig illustrated four main advantages of adopting broadband – having greater access to healthcare (through tele-health technologies), education, job opportunities, and civic engagement.
A central topic among the panelists was how to harness national policy efforts to increase broadband adoption.
[Federal Communication Commission (“FCC”) Commissioner Mignon] Clyburn said that affordability was a primary barrier to greater adoption, and spoke of the FCC’s recent action to reform its Universal Service Fund to subsidize broadband service for low income Americans.
“People should not have to choose between feeding their families and paying for the transformational benefits of broadband,” she said.
Read the rest of the piece here.
[Image Via Jcarranza]
Sara Inés Calderón is a journalist and writer who lives between Texas and California. Follow her on Twitter @SaraChicaD.
