Page 32 - BusinessWest March 3, 2021

020
W
TAG National Ad Campaign Preview
Best Practice #77
ork Anywhere with Microsoft Azure Work Anywhere with Microsoft Azure
Go Hack Yourself
Simulated Cyber Attacks are a Great Way to Protect Your Network
Personal Desktop Experience on Any Device
The Personal Desktop Experience on Any Device
ualized | Fully Managed | Always Up-to-Date | Cybersecure
Virtualized | Fully Managed | Always Up-to-Date | Cybersecure
Wonder What Else You Don’t Know? Call Us.
(413) 585-9950 www.twe.atemamhohgoagna.nc.ocmom
ational.com/internal/ads/details.aspx?c=Microsoft Azure13&g=Microsoft Azure
(
413) 585-9950
(413) 585-9950
www.teamhogan.com
The
Virt
//www.tagn
on the federal level — when it comes to regulating contracts and service arrangements.
That’s why Lesser is high on municipal broadband, offered by a city to its residents like a public utility — an initiative that Chicopee and Westfield have undertaken, to name two local projects. “It really is like the water or electricity of the 21st century, that’s delivered by the city as well.”
More such municipal projects will also increase competition, he said, which could force other providers to lower their prices and boost speed.
Even people who have internet access through large companies often deal with higher costs than they can easily afford, Lesser said. “The costs are astronomical in the U.S. — people pay much more per month than in Europe or Asia.”
Therefore, “the state needs to look at ways to open the market more and create more competition,” he added, and that could simply entail put- ting more pressure on big internet companies.
“The problem is, internet service is left to the private sector when it’s
a public good,” he said. “It doesn’t make economic sense for big compa- nies to invest in infrastructure to get the internet turned on in small com- munities. The state may have to man- date they have to make those invest- ments if they want to provide service for bigger locations.”
An Issue of Equity
Tantillo agrees with Lesser that society should be looking at connec- tivity as a utility and a basic, afford- able service, but goes a step further.
“From an equity perspective, this disproportionatelyimpactswomen
and people of color, so it’s also a
social-justice issue,” she said. “But a
crisis like this is also a big opportu-
nity to be transformative. Springfield
is considered the city of innovation. With a bold solution and reallocat- ing resources, who knows what this community can transform into, if everyone has the opportunity to participate equally in online banking, telehealth, access to jobs, even to engage civically?”
Salomon-Fernández agreed. “In this day and age, it’s also an equity issue when you have people disconnected from the rest of the world. In the United States of America, and in one of the most technologically advanced states in the country, that’s a concern.”
And a particularly acute one, she added, in Franklin County, which contains some of the more rural and economically marginalized towns in the state. The impact isn’t just a problem in the present — it can have long-term effects.
“The world is increasingly globalized, and not being connected has negative repercussions on communities,” she added. “We are creating an underclass of people not able to take full advantage of economic pos- sibilities through digitalization and connectivity. That has real effects, not just on teaching and learning, but also on the vibrancy of our whole region.”
The Federal Communications Commission’s latest broadband deployment report concluded that the “digital divide is rapidly closing.” But some voices in that agency are more hesitant.
“If this crisis has revealed anything, it is the hard truth that the digi- tal divide is very real and very big,” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosen- worcel said in a statement released along with the report last month. “It confounds logic that today the FCC decides to release a report that says that broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.”
The most recent available data from Pew Research, published in 2019, found that around 27% of Americans don’t have home broad- band. That percentage is higher for Americans whose annual income is less than $30,000 (44%), black and Hispanic Americans (34% and 39%, respectively), rural Americans (37%), and those with a high-school edu- cation or less (44%).
Margaret Tantillo says the digital divide, 1/2 ifnotrectified,couldleavegenerations
behind when it comes to economic opportunity.
Business Leaders Need
to Be on the Ground
and also 10,000 Feet
balancing, putting out fires, and making tomorrow more fireproof. For that you need to think, feel, act, learn, repeat. Hear Ira Bryck create interesting and useful conversations with our community members who take a risk and create opportunity, about how and why they do what they do, and what they think about while they do it.
The Western Mass
Business Show
with Ira Bryck
Saturdays at 11am Sundays at 2pm
Streaming at: tinyurl.com/ wmassbusiness- show
THE BUSINESS JOURNAL OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
Recent Guests (top to bottom) Chris Thompson, Michelle Huber,
John Diffley, and Diane Sabato
HEAlTHCARE NEWS
THE BUSINESS JOURNAL OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
Sponsored By:
HEAlTHCARE NEWS
Pew also reported, from a survey conducted last April, that 22% of par- ents — 40% in low-income families —
Digital Divide
Continued on page 35
32
MARCH 3, 2021
TECHNOLOGY
2
BusinessWest