The Digital Expansion Initiative promotes meaningful Internet access for New Yorkers through research, education, and organizing.
Activities: Founded in 2007, DEI uses participant-led research, media production, public education, and community organizing to expand meaningful Internet access to all New Yorkers. DEI members are interviewing people in their community who have limited access to the Internet while working with high school students to investigate existing infrastructure and policies in New York City. In addition to defining the problem, the research doubles as base-building for a forthcoming community organizing campaign to erase the digital divides in our community
Partnerships: DEI partners with 5-7 social change organizations, 3 research institutions, and one high school
City Council tries to halt new technology that could close the digital divide. Community advocates react.
Advocates for closing the digital divide condemned a City Council resolution urging the Federal Communications Commission to delay a decision concerning the unused part of the airwaves known as “white spaces.” The FCC has announced its intention to issue a ruling at a November 4 meeting.
The Council's Committee on Technology in Government passed Resolution No. 1613 at a special meeting this morning. The full Council is expected to approve it this afternoon.
In passing the resolution, the Council rejected calls from technologists, good government groups, immigrant rights organizations, and community media to endorse the new technology. Instead, the resolution repeats the request from the National Association of Broadcasters that the FCC delay its decision. Because of anticipated turnover at the FCC with a new administration, any delay at this point would extend an already-four-year-long review for up to a year or more.
“The City Council is playing politics with our technological future. They would rather cut and paste a NAB press release than close the digital divide,” Joshua Breitbart, Policy Director for People's Production House, said.
Proponents of white space technology argue that it would pave the way for cheaper, faster wireless connections to the Internet, allowing many people to afford an Internet connection for the first time. A recent study commissioned by the City's Economic Development Corporation found that only 46.4 percent of New York households have high speed Internet access, well below the national average. Low income residents are even further behind, with barely a quarter having broadband at home. Wireless access over the white spaces would be especially helpful in rural areas, where many people lack even the option of purchasing a broadband connection.
Opponents claim the devices could interfere with other wireless signals, such as television broadcasts or wireless microphone transmissions. FCC engineers recently determined that white space devices can detect and avoid other signals, which will prevent interference.
The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology conducted 18 months of lab and field testing of white spaces prototypes, including a test at a Broadway show where wireless microphones are routinely used. Broadway producers, while not technically licensed to use wireless microphones, have relied on them for years and fear having to adjust their practices. On October 15, the FCC's engineers concluded that "the burden of 'proof of concept' has been met."
The engineering results are part of an FCC review dating back to early 2004. All told, the various stakeholders have filed nearly 30,000 comments in the proceeding. Maximum Service Television and wireless microphone manufacturer Shure, both of which testified before City Council in support of the resolution, have filed 104 and 67 comments with the FCC respectively.
“We're hopeful that the FCC will ignore the New York City Council's sop to the broadcasters and base its decision on sound engineering and the public interest,” Breitbart said.
Broadband Internet service is available for nearly every house in New York City, yet less than half have adopted it. Barely a quarter of low income households pay for a high speed connection at home.
As PPH Policy Director Joshua Breitbart explains in this audio clip, Internet access on mobile phones brings connectivity to people where they are on devices that they have already decided to pay for. This is a better way to get people online than trying to convince them to buy a new machine and pay for a new service.
Disparities in mobile phone use, even with data services like email or web, are much smaller than at-home Internet connections, in terms of class, race, and age. Mobile phones are far more widespread than computers with at-home Internet, especially among the groups currently marginalized from the Internet.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project study, "Mobile Access to Data and Information,"
More striking is use among African Americans and Latinos. Some 56% of English-speaking Hispanics with a wireless handheld device use a non-voice data or information application on the average day, and 50% of African Americans with wireless handhelds do so. These groups lagged in “desktop” online access in the late 1990s and early part of the decade, but the report shows a very different pattern for wireless access on the go. African Americans and English-speaking Hispanics are more likely than white Americans to use cell phones or PDAs for non-voice data applications.
Key statistics
Internet service availability in New York City:
- Cable is available in 98% of households.*
- DSL is available in 87% of households.*
Disparities in broadband adoption in New York City:
- Broadband usage** in
• The Bronx: 38.8%
• Brooklyn: 41.5%
• Queens: 46.4%
• Manhattan: 55.7%
• Staten Island: 57.9%
• All boroughs: 46.4%
- 54% of moderate and high-income households in New York City have high-speed Internet access at home.*
- 26% of low-income households in New York City have high-speed Internet access at home.*
Disparities in broadband adoption in the United States:
- 54% of the population has a high-speed Internet connection at home.***
- 20% of seniors over 65 years old have a high-speed Internet connection at home.***
- 40% of people with income under $30,000 have a high-speed Internet connection at home.***
- 38% of African Americans have a high-speed Internet connection at home.***
The divide shrinks when looking at mobile phone use:
- 75% of the population reports owning a cell phone.***
- 71% of African Americans have cell phones.***
- 61% of people with income under $30,000 have cell phones.***
- 50% of people age 65 and older have cell phones.***
* Source: New York City Broadband Needs Assessment Study (Discussion Draft, September 6, 2007)
** Source: Scarborough Market Research, '06-'07
***Source: Pew Internet & American Life Survey, December 2007.
At the City Council hearing on the white spaces resolution, Committee Chair Gale Brewer asked about the cost of white space devices. Dana Spiegel from NYCwireless explained that, like most new technology, the cost would start high then go down over time. PPH Policy Director Joshua Breitbart pointed out that the true cost would actually be a savings compared to what we spend now for Internet access and mobile phone calls. In this audio clip, he explains how delivering Internet connectivity to people's mobile phones is the most effective way to close the digital divide between those with high speed Internet access at home and those without.
For more information, see "Why is mobile Internet access key to digital expansion?"
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