Milwaukee's Digital Divide

Milwaukee -- Tracee Waltman’s struggle to get quality internet service for her family intensified last year due to school closures caused by the pandemic.

 

With closures came a loss of income as Waltman worked in family recruitment at Rocketship Transformation Prep, the same school her two children attend.

 

Loss of income meant loss of the ability to pay her internet bill, so she was forced to rely on her phone’s hotspot to connect herself and her children.

 

“The computers drain a lot. I’m constantly buying re-boost cards to try and keep up the internet on my phone.” Waltman said.

 

A poor internet connection exacerbated the aggravation of virtual learning, especially for her oldest daughter who has ADHD.

 

Waltman’s attempts to apply for AT&T’s low-income program didn’t pan out. She was denied due to her credit score, even though she was told a credit check was not a part of the process.

 

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About a month into the school year, Waltman became a recipient of her school’s free internet service through Spectrum, and since then her kids “have not missed a beat.”

 

Adequate internet access is paramount for families like this who have young children depending on a good connection to learn. In this day and age, a bad internet connection can be like not having a seat in class.

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Waltman helps her children with their homework.

 

Urban Broadband

 

Internet quality issues in urban communities commonly stem from financial reasons rather than lack of service options in the area.

 

Community organizations such as City Forward Collective, Bridge Milwaukee, United Way and the United Community Center have worked to bridge the city’s digital divide.

 

Aiding low-income households and those with students is a primary goal of these organizations.

Multi-generational families and those with several or more students in the home are more likely than other families to have internet connection issues due to increased stress on bandwidth.

 

“It may just not be mom, dad and a child, it might be mom, dad, uncle, their children and their extended family as well,” said Shaba Martinez, the instructional technology specialist for the United Community Center that’s provided technological aid to the families it serves.

 

Somewhere between 10% and 20% of children in Milwaukee were without reliable access to the internet when the pandemic’s implications came to fruition in the spring, according to Isral Debruin, the director of strategy and communication for City Forward Collective.

 

Cable companies helped with free and discounted access, while schools distributed Chromebooks and hotspots.

 

Chromebooks offer a less expensive laptop alternative to MacBook or Windows devices, and mobile hotspots provide a wireless connection for phones, tablets, laptops, and other electronics.

 

AT&T and Spectrum still offer low-cost internet service for qualifying households.

Access from AT&T is a program that provides $10 a month internet to qualifying households. This option provides up to 25Mbps download speed and 5Mbps upload speed, according to a local representative.

 

To qualify, at least one member of the home must participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and live in a service area.

 

Spectrum’s Internet Assist is a similar program that requires a member of the household to receive benefits from the National School Lunch Program, Community Eligibility Provision, or Supplemental Security Income.

 

This low-cost service provides internet for $17.99 and offers speeds up to 30Mbps for downloads and 4Mbps for uploads, according to a local representative.

 

Other internet service providers such as Comcast, CenturyLink, and Cox Communications offer comparable programs to assist those who cannot afford conventional pricing.

 

Cheapinternet.com has a list of low-cost regional and national internet programs and it provides details regarding cost, eligibility and upload/download speeds.

 

In December of last year, a $7 billion stimulus package was approved by Congress. $3.2 billion is assigned to an up to $50-a-month internet bill discount for low-income families.

 

The FCC is also providing a one-time discount of up to $100 for technology purchases. This broadband stimulus plan is designed to ensure that more people can access school, work opportunities and health care online.

 

Milwaukee’s county library system is expanding its hotspot program, which allows up to 10 devices to be connected to a hotspot, according to community relations director Eileen Cahill.

The library is collaborating with its foundation and private donors to develop the program due to its popularity.

 

Efforts to decrease the digital divide extend to cities and counties around Wisconsin.

 

The Kenosha County Library System used some of its money from the CARES Act to purchase dozens of hotspots and Chromebooks to be checked out for up to six weeks, according to its director, Barbara Brattin.

 

During its closure in March and April, the library system worked with local organization Building Our Future to map out child poverty and low internet access, and figured out where the need lied.

 

A mobile hotspot van was then deployed in these areas to aid students and families with their online work.

 

Starting on March 30 of last year, The Kenosha YMCA provided virtual learning spaces for displaced students as schools were moving classes online, according to youth and family director Rachel Mall.

 

Teachers, tutors, free breakfast and lunch were also incorporated with these spaces to help children get the most out of their education.

 

This has not been easy as the nonprofit continuously works with its school district and IT company to obtain more hotspots, and make sure its bandwidth is strong enough to handle all the students.

 

“There's a lot of behind-the-scenes things that have to happen when you’re running a virtual learning classroom, Mall said.”

 

The city of Racine has built a “pretty extensive” fiber network, according to communications director Shannon Powell.

 

This has been possible due to the preemptive additions of conduit when streets are being dug up so that fiber can be pulled beneath the road.

 

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Providing free public-facing Wi-Fi is another way Racine is working to decrease the digital divide, according to Powell. The city is placing internet access points on light poles in major corridors like the downtown area. Community centers and other public buildings also supply free Wi-Fi.

 

Moving to northern efforts, Achieve Brown County is a collective initiative that facilitates the efforts of businesses, non-profits, schools and government entities to ensure all young people in its region attain success in school, work, and life.

 

Partnership is key when it comes to diminishing the digital divide. Not just one organization, business or school can solve the problem said Ann McCotter, the director of collaborative action Ann McCotter.

 

Understanding and defining the internet access issue has been the bulk of the collective’s work thus far. It has surveyed school districts to get a grasp of the number of students who don’t have internet or internet-enabled devices. Along with that, maps of free public Wi-Fi spots in Brown County were created.

 

Cooperating with Geo Partners LLC, the collective is also supporting an FCC compliant county-wide speed test to pinpoint the strong and weak points of internet service.

 

“Right now, the team’s focus is to get really good information about what’s going on through the speed tests. That will lead to strategic grant requests that would help solve the lower access points in the community,” McCotter said.

 

Collaboration and research at multiple levels appear to be the necessary building blocks to change.

 

The Blandin Foundation supports community broadband development across Minnesota.

 

The foundation convenes community leaders and experts to have a dialogue regarding the needs towns are dealing with, according to Bernadine Joselyn, the foundation's director of public policy and engagement.

 

Education and assessment of strategies are vital to this dialogue.

“We have a rubric that we use to help communities see the interconnectedness of infrastructure and adoption,” Joselyn said.

 

This assessment tool identifies gaps within a community’s broadband strategy as well as opportunities to address those gaps. The foundation uses its resources to prepare communities with effectively distributing state and federal broadband funding.

 

At a national level, the Pew Charitable Trusts’ broadband initiative focuses informing policy through research that advances internet access efforts.

 

It has looked at states in different development phases and varying levels of funding to identify patterns that lead to success.

 

Successful communities engage stakeholders, address policy barriers, create a framework for expanding access, and are good at evaluating where they are and determining next steps, according to Pew research officer Anna Read.

 

Efforts Around the Country

 

San Rafael, California; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Providence, Rhode Island are recent examples of where they’ve built free wireless networks across their cities, according to Christopher Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a Minneapolis nonprofit dedicated to supporting rural communities.

 

“These efforts are often funded heavily by philanthropy and not just local taxpayer dollars,” Mitchell said. “There’s a different mentality about it versus getting into the business and building a network, borrowing money for it and trying to make the project cash flow.”

 

Kansas City became the first Google Fiber city in 2012. The fiber-to-the-premises-service is now being offered within big cities in 12 other states such as Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, and Colorado, according to the Google Fiber website.

 

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Chattanooga, Tennessee began building a fiber network to connect everyone who could pay for it in 2010. The city even built it across low-income parts of town and in the rural areas outside the city.

 

This is one of the most successful networks in the country providing speeds up to 1Gbps, according to Tech.Co, a resource for technology news, reviews, and advice.

 

Over the summer the city announced it would be providing free access for 10 years to every family that is in the free and reduced lunch program. This affects 17,700 homes in its county, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website. The endeavor cost $8.2 million to finish.

 

Technological Aid in Milwaukee

 

In March, cable companies came out initially and said they were going to do three months of free service. This was helpful to the families that took advantage of it, but in some cases might have taken a prolonged period to install.

 

“When they offered in March to have free internet for anyone who needed it for remote learning, it was a two month wait to possibly get someone to install it,” said Kaitlyn Wright the computer science coordinator for Seeds of Health, Inc., a corporation that addresses local health and educational needs.

 

The question was for all those families who are taking advantage of that free three months was, what’s going to happen when time is up? This was also the question for Milwaukee school administrators and community organizations.

 

“My budget went from $200,000 to over a million dollars for technology in just a few months,” said Jennifer Lopez, Carmen High Schools CEO.

 

Chromebooks and mobile hotspots took up much of her technology budget. This was the case for other schools and institutions around the city as well.

 

“We had a rule...100% of families to get internet service and actual technology before September 1st, the start of the school year,” Lopez said. “We held true to that, and if families came to Carmen after that and needed internet or a Chromebook, we would give them that within 24 hours of asking.”

 

With increasing unemployment and uncertainty growing last fall, household stability has come in question.

 

“Given the reality in which some of our students and our families have lost wages and lost income...and with evictions increasing, we try to ensure that our kids are going to daycare centers or somewhere else to learn virtually,” Lopez said.

 

“We wanted to be able to have them take that hotspot with them and not necessarily be tied to the home,” she added.

 

Martinez echoes this sentiment and knows how commonly students move around based on their parent's schedules.

 

“They’ll be at grandma’s house, uncle’s house, daycare, or the YMCA where they won’t have internet access,” she noted.

 

Chromebooks are essential for virtual learning if families do not own a computer. It is impractical for students to use a cellphone for schoolwork and class meetings.

 

Mobile hotspots offer conveniences such as mobility where there is a decent cell signal, versatility across devices without the need for a 4G or 5G card, and simultaneity when several people need to connect.

 

However, low speeds compared to a wired connection and data caps on a mobile plan prevent hotspots from being the ultimate solution. Even unlimited data plans can be throttled after a certain amount of data usage occurs.

 

“Families who have more than two students really need more than one hotspot. Our goal was to get as close to a 1:1 hotspot to student ratio,” Wright said. With families where they have five or six kids it’s probably closer to 2:1.

 

Alternate Solutions in Milwaukee

 

Besides giving out Chromebooks and hotspots, some schools such as Messmer Catholic Schools have found other solutions such as partnering with the Boys and Girls Club to provide spaces for virtual learning.

 

Some families have too much going on with work and several children. It can be tough to give each child the attention they need at home, especially the younger ones who require more technological assistance, according to Lisamarie Arnold, Messmer’s director of admissions and community relations.

 

A solid hotspot connection can be unreliable when multiple people are attempting to connect to a live video class stream.

 

Rocketship Transformation Prep recognized this and is now directly paying for some of their families’ internet.

 

“We started investing in a business account through Spectrum and setting up internet right at families houses and paying for that,” said principal Kourtney Vang. “It was either equal or lesser than what the hotspots were costing us, and it was frankly better internet.”

 

“We have close to 20 or 25 families on campus that we’re paying for,” she added.

 

Spectrum has a central account for businesses that have multiple locations. The school took advantage of that service and have added additional addresses as the year has gone on.

 

The need for quality internet access nowadays cannot be understated as the pandemic continues to develop.

 

“What we’ve learned about the importance of internet access as people try to physically distance from one another, access virtual learning opportunities, job opportunities etc., is that without that internet access at a high speed and consistently at your house, it’s tough to participate in the economy, in education, in all elements of society,” said Ian Bautista, director of civic engagement for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

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