The Digital Divide w/ Adeyinka Ogunlegan and Sean Gerner | builders podcast

0:00You want to deploy internet infrastructure, but it isn't always if you build it, they will come. If they can't afford it, they definitely will not come.

0:13In today's episode, I speak with Arjenka Agonale and Sean Gerner of Education Superhighway, and we discuss their organization's mission to ensure that every American has access to affordable, high-speed internet. We also talk about those broadband internet nutrition labels you might have seen or heard about in the news this month. We don't have our normal first segment this week, as Marty Beckerman, who is Business.com's Editor-in-Chief, is on assignment.

0:44We're here today to talk about Internet access in America and the digital divide with Adi Inka, Ogun Lagan, and Sean Gerner from Education Superhighway. How are you both today? Doing well. Thanks for having us, Sean. Yeah, pleasure. The digital divide is a topic that's really close to all of us, but we don't often see it being a trending topic on LinkedIn. So we're taping this on April 12th. Earlier this week, broadband nutrition labels were debuted for the first time. We've known about them for a long time, but most consumers probably didn't know they were coming. I'll ask you, Sean, can you explain what these broadband nutrition labels are, what they're intended to do and anything you think about the subject?

1:31Yeah, thanks, Sean. So I think we're going to talk about this a little bit later is the challenge process. But I've been looking at provider websites all week long and I've probably come across, I don't know, maybe 50 of these nutrition labels already. And in essence, the way I view it is it's taking, you know, the 20 pages of fine print that you would typically run across when you're ordering Internet service from a provider and, you know, shorten that to a single nutrition label. So it tells you your monthly price, if there's a contract or a term limit, what that price will be after the term limit.

2:07It tells you things like what the installation fee is going to be, if there are any additional costs for renting or leasing equipment, if there are any data caps or overages related to data, what your typical speeds would be with the plan, easy access to customer service. So there's a bunch of different things kind of on that label, and it makes it really, hopefully, really easy for the consumer. Previously, they'd go on and search for Internet, and really the only thing that they would see is what the speed is. But we know that there's like 19 other variables that kind of go into this decision making process.

2:40And that's essentially what shows up on the label and nice, easy to read form for consumers. So it's supposed to inform and potentially protect consumers because a lot of the consumer complaints that we're exposed to in our jobs is not getting the speeds that you expect or the quality that you expect or being surprised that your price goes up in the future. Do you think these will be effective? I mean, I think we all hope they will be. and just based on your initial impression, I know they're just rolling out. Are there any ideas that you have about changing, improving or just too early to tell?

3:22Yeah, maybe too early to tell in terms of any changes or improvements. I do think that they will be helpful. You know, one of the big things that I've noticed is previous to the labels, it was really easy to determine kind of what your download speed was, but that was really the only thing that you had access to. You know, the upload speeds were like hidden in pages and sometimes almost inaccessible. and now those are like blatantly clear on this nutrition label. So the consumer kind of has this, you know, full array of what they're entering into with the provider, not only from a speed perspective, but all those other things that I mentioned.

3:53Yeah, that's true. And upload speeds become so much more important as we're doing everything on video calls these days. And I think people are more, will become more informed as to what these things are. Do you like that they look like a nutrition label? It's funny to me that, you know, I've been exposed to these things for 30 years or whenever they came out on food products. Do you like the look of them? Yeah, I mean, I guess. It's easy to read. I may be missing the list of ingredients that you typically see on the cereal box or whatnot. But yeah, I mean, I think it should be something that people have come across in a different, obviously in a different industry, kind of at the supermarket.

4:32And hopefully that makes it a little bit more easy on the eyes once they jump in there. Well, we just covered kind of the hot topic of the day, but education superhighway, is one of many organizations that's focused on a real challenge in America, which is to have everybody connected with affordable high-speed internet. Adyanka, I'd like to ask you if you could sort of talk about the mission of Education Superhighway when it was founded and then what it's focused on today as you've evolved as an organization. Absolutely. So Education Superhighway was founded in 2012. The original mission was to close the K-12 classroom connectivity gap.

5:14Our founder and CEO, Evan Marwell, discovered that 80 % of schools did not have internet connectivity. And so knowing that the E-Rate program exists to fund connectivity to schools, we were initially focused on that, connecting schools with that funding, making sure that they had access to connect with the marketplace and get accurate bids and bring fiber to school. So that was our initial mission. And we were able to declare mission accomplished on that in 2020, right on time with 99.6 % of schools connected and also driving down the price of connectivity for schools, allowing them to leverage E-rate funds.

5:54But of course, we all know what happened in 2020. The pandemic hit and a lot of our state and school district partners as they were sending students home for what ultimately became virtual learning, for reaching out to us saying, you know, hey, I'm sending these students home. A lot of them don't have internet. How can you help? And so that's how we dove into our work post ESH 1.0 with that mission. And Education Superhighway is now focused on what we call the broadband affordability gap. There are 17 million households in this country that have access to internet where they live, but affordability keeps them offline.

6:31Our mission is to get those households online, leveraging two key tools. One, of course, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, the Affordable Connectivity Program, really focusing on that affordability piece and driving adoption of that program. And what I hope we'll also get into later, our apartment Wi-Fi model, connecting low-income households and public housing residents to internet where they live. So those are two key programmatic solutions for that. We've really been focused on that for the last two and a half, three years right now. And so that's what we're driving towards. First of all, congratulations on Mission Accomplice with the schools in 2020.

7:08And I also remember that frenetic time. I live in Seattle, and part of what needed to be done for students was distributing Wi-Fi hotspots that students could take home and use to stay connected in school. And so it's an unfortunate irony that that happened, right, when you had worked so hard to connect all the schools. You talked about the ACP. Maybe could you give an overview of what it was? And then I say was, I guess, because it's changing. It's changing. And what's your opinion on how it's gone so far? Sure. So the Affordable Connectivity Program, or the ACP, was created in 2021 as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law.

8:04It was designed as a benefit to help households that can't afford Internet get online, stay online. So it provides a$30 benefit to households that qualify,$75 if they live on what's called qualifying tribal lands. But it goes directly towards the Internet service so they can connect with a participating provider. and that benefit is applied towards their bill. For a lot of vulnerable populations, that in some instances met free internet service because we had a lot of providers that created $30 plans that allowed for essentially free service once the ATP benefit was applied. Congress originally allocated$14.2 billion towards the program, and we are right now at the point where 23 million households are leveraging that benefit to maintain their internet service.

8:54Unfortunately, Congress only allocated$14.2 billion to the program when the Infrastructure Act passed. And so without additional funding, the program is what we called in this wind down phase. The FCC paused new enrollments in the program, and without additional funding, it will end mid-May. And when it ends, what does that mean? What does that mean for somebody who's enrolled? They start getting a bill. They have a decision to make whether to stay with their provider and then cover that cost themselves. A lot of providers are still trying to figure out what they're going to do, whether or not they will maintain their$30 plan.

9:33Many have already publicly committed to that, a lot of the larger ones. But for some households, it'll be a tough decision. Do they keep their internet service, service that they at one point probably could not afford without the ACP benefit? We're really concerned that that 23 million households, a lot of them will ultimately end up on the wrong side of the digital divide again. The digital divide, I have historically talked about the digital divide as whether or not you can physically get Internet, not whether or not you can physically get Internet and afford it. And so there's a clearly as infrastructure has been built out in the U.S., that's clearly a really big issue.

10:14Do you also think about the topic of digital literacy, which might be like the third leg of the stool? Like, can I get it? Can I afford it? And then do I have the tools to use it effectively? No, absolutely. And I think most folks in the digital divide ecosystem, the broadband space would say that there are three legs to that stool. Yes, the access piece is there. You want to deploy Internet infrastructure, but it isn't always if you build it, they will come. If they can't afford it, they definitely will not come. And then if they don't have a device, it doesn't matter if they have Internet in their community, if they don't have a device.

10:50And then once they do have a device, they can afford the Internet. There's connectivity there. Are they able to leverage it for all of its useful benefits? Can they apply for jobs? Can they take classes? Do they have the skill set to navigate, to get on the Internet, to do all the things that you and I may take for granted? We know that it's so essential, especially coming out of the pandemic. We learned how essential it is to so many facets of our lives. And for a lot of households, you can't assume that they know how to navigate this new space once they are connected. Adianka, you and I had a chance to meet at the Broadband Measurement Summit in D.C.

11:27and, you know, a lot of it, some of it, I guess, I guess I would say was focused on where it's kind of obvious that there might not be any internet access, you know, super rural lands or maybe tribal lands where things haven't been built out yet. However, a lot of the summit was focused on information at the very local level. Like just because you live in Seattle, one of the tech hubs of the world doesn't mean that your apartment building is actually wired for high-speed access, but there's not necessarily some map that you can go to to determine that. Maybe I'll ask both of you this question.

12:12Where are we and why is it important to have good information about high-speed internet access at the household level? Like how achievable, how knowable is it right now and why is it so important for us practically speaking? I'll tee that up, and then I'll let Sean take it away because he's been really in the weeds on what we're doing as far as drilling down into that data. Thankfully, now we do have the National Broadband Map, which is supposed to identify every structure across the country and determine whether or not service is available at that location. I think we have made strides in terms of being able to understand household connectivity, both from a residential perspective as well as a business perspective, because we also want to make sure that businesses are connected.

12:56I still think we have some ways to go, which Sean will probably get into. But in terms of why it's important, we need to know where access is available. We need to know where affordable access is available in terms of preparing our nation, our students, just the country for where we are now as a society, where we want to be in terms of education, in terms of health, in terms of eliminating some of the socioeconomic barriers that keep people from thriving. Internet is embedded in every aspect of our lives, and we need to know where that access is lacking. Let me give a real life example. Um, we, we started piloting kind of our apartment wifi program work in Oakland and one of the first 10 buildings that we personally set up with a free wifi network.

13:39You can almost see it from city hall. I was at a meeting with the California public utility commission, um, the end of last year, I think maybe October. And the property is like around the corner, down the street, maybe 300 feet from city hall. And it's shown up on some version of either the federal national broadband map or the California State broadband map as being served by one, two, three, multiple providers. And those maps have been iterated on a number of times over the last couple of years now, but it's always been labeled as served by a provider. And it's not. The only service that is in that building is a copper DSL-based services because no internet service provider has wanted to make the improvements to the infrastructure to bring something newer, faster, better into this building until we came along and actually dropped in a free Wi-Fi network.

14:27So that's kind of like the real life example of what we're trying to do is like we're trying to find those needles in a haystack here at Education Superhighway. So we know that all of these different versions of the maps that are out there are not representative of the unit level connectivity within an apartment building. As Adi Anka mentioned earlier, our mission is focused on those 17 million households that may actually have access, but they can't afford to connect. So we are participating in essentially the state challenge process for their upcoming B program to identify those types of buildings, as I just mentioned.

15:01So which of those buildings may be represented as being served by a provider. But once you actually get into the service provider's website, try to place an order for service, call them, chat with them, whatever means you have to go about trying to order service, identifying locations that are not actually served at the unit or the household level. and hopefully ensuring that those are classified correctly and are eligible for federal funding opportunities. That's a really good example. And let me let me bubble back up because you you you mentioned the challenge process. We were talking earlier about the the the ACP and the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and they didn't just allocate money for affordable Internet.

15:44They also allocated money to providers and states to actually build out infrastructure. Can you talk about the amount of money the federal government allocated and then what the challenge process does or can inform to help make sure the money goes to the right place? Forty two point five billion dollars, I think it was, for the broadband equity access and deployment program. That is the access piece of our Internet challenges as a country, building to all the places that don't have service right now so that we can achieve universal connectivity. That funding coming from the federal government will be allocated to states or should say has been allocated to states to achieve their universal service goals.

16:29Of course, there are lots of nuances in that process in terms of how they have to allocate that money. But essentially what they have to do, as Sean alluded to, is identify all the unserved locations, locations in their state that do not have adequate access. The underserved locations, those that already have access, but the speeds are not up to par, and then all of their community anchor institutions, things like your schools, libraries, healthcare centers, identifying all of those locations and making sure that they allocate their B dollars accordingly to achieve universal service. But as Sean said, yes, we do have this national map now that identifies all of the locations across the country.

17:08But there are issues with what that map says in terms of service availability and what's actually the real lived experience of households in that state, in that community. So each state is required to run a challenge process where organizations like ours, local government entities can challenge what the national map says, what the state map currently says about a specific location. We are participating in that state challenge process across all 50 states, specifically with a lens on apartment buildings or multi-dwelling units, MDUs, to make sure that those are adequately classified. Because as an organization, we know that 20 to 25 percent of those unconnected households that we refer to, that 17 million, they live in apartment buildings.

17:55So if you can solve their connectivity challenges, you can really put a huge dent in the digital divide. But I'll let Sean tell you a little bit about a little bit more about what we're doing, like specifically with the challenge process and how we're tackling that. But that's how the BEE program is designed to tackle the deployment piece and make sure that we have access. Thanks. Yeah, Sean, I would be interested to know, like sort of the minutia of the challenge process and how you're injecting yourself in there. Try not to bore you to death and give you like the 30 ,000 foot view here. I've been living and breathing this for the last six months now.

18:30So essentially, we started and we identified about 85 ,000 MDU locations nationally across all 50 states. And these are MDUs that are in census tracts that are either highly unconnected or high poverty. And we we then overlaid those 85 ,000 locations with the national broadband map, the most recent recent version. Most states that are running their challenge process right now are using version 3.2, but there's been previous versions and they keep changing and keep iterating, which makes this process for challengers that much more difficult because you have to try to keep up with the claims that the ISPs are making on these maps.

19:11But anyways, we took the 85 ,000 locations. We overlaid it with the claims of the service providers. We identified any eligible technology and provider who was claiming to offer 100 download by 20 upload, which would take that MDU to the served classification and be ineligible for funding. We then set out on about a six month campaign now where we went out to those providers' websites. We tried to order service from them at that location for specific units within the building. Some providers make this pretty difficult where you can't actually order Internet service on the Internet from the Internet provider.

19:46So let that one sink in. Right. You have to call them. You have to chat with them. You have to email them. So we went through that process and essentially we've narrowed down that list of eighty five thousand to something that's a little bit more manageable. So once each of the states actually launches their required challenge process, we then take a deeper look at those locations we've identified may be challengeable. We collect the appropriate evidence based on how the state is conducting their challenge process. And then we submit those challenges during what's generally a 30 day window. Some states are slightly shorter.

20:20Some states are slightly longer. But most of them have kind of landed on a 30 day window to actually submit those challenges. Wow. And so it's a it's a whole it's a whole lot of work. And it's awesome that you all are participating in that. You know, let me let me ask sort of a higher level question as a as a response. So everybody's heart's in the right place. We all want to address all three legs of the stool, access, affordability, digital literacy. That being said, when you think about the work that the federal government's doing or the state government, what would you change? What would you do differently?

20:57What would you suggest going forward to make this process and achieving all these things that we want to accomplish together work better or work faster? That is a very profound question, John. I think at this point, one, we have received a historic once in a generation investment in solving our connectivity challenges as a country. My concern is that with all the federal funding now in this space that states are going to be allocating. One, we're not going this isn't an overnight issue. Like we're going to have to invest in deployment of service of service. We're going to have to invest, I should say, in making sure that that service is affordable.

21:41But that's not going to be solved overnight. Like, I think the long term plan is what I'm hoping that we can get right in terms of making sure that the networks that we build, you know, continue to that they're future proof. For one, that they continue to be affordable, that we address not only devices, but digital literacy and digital skills. I know the topic du jour right now is AI. like what that means for so many aspects of our lives, but we still have a huge segment of our population that are not even connected. So connecting those dots and thinking long term in terms of the investment that we're making now, but what does that look like 10 years from now, 20 years from now?

22:20How do we continue to sustain the strides that we're making now to make sure that we don't end up back in this scenario in the future? Sean, anything to add to that? Yeah, I wish I would have gone first. I wouldn't have to follow. The only thing I would add is recommend that the decision makers that are out there not be comfortable with the status quo. And I'll give you a real life experience. So I worked for a telecom organization before joining Education Superhighway. And if I was bidding on a portfolio of opportunities, if I was bidding on 10 properties, I'd be able to put together a much more aggressive of proposal for that organization than if I was bidding on just one single location.

23:04So I think those decision makers at the state level, federal level, federal level need to look at this as like a$43 billion portfolio and really, you know, stretch the boundaries of what the industry has typically done and not feel comfortable with that status quo and really get the most bang for their buck out of these dollars. I love both of those answers. I have one, I guess one final question. It's kind of a two-part question. How much does it cost to put in a Wi-Fi into an apartment building, the work that you mentioned that you did in Oakland? That's part one. And part two, if a business owner is listening to this or someone's listening to this and they want to do something, they want to donate to Education Superhighway or they want to invest in something like this, what would you recommend that they do?

23:53Yeah, so the first one is maybe a little bit of a loaded question because every project is different. So you're going to have a pretty wide range, right? It's going to depend on the type of building, the building materials, the number of units, if it's a mid-rise or a high-rise versus a garden-style property. There's a lot of variables. But generally speaking, we've been able to kind of accomplish insulation for somewhere between maybe$500 and$1 ,000 per unit up front in terms of the capital cost. Some projects we've actually done less expensive than that. We've got a couple of projects that are in the$300 per unit.

24:26That might be atypical. And then on the monthly kind of ongoing cost to provide that Internet service, I would say on average, 10 to 20 dollars per month per unit is where you can kind of get the ongoing cost. Again, we've had some projects that have been as inexpensive as five dollars per unit, just depending upon how those variables work out. But holistically, at the end of the day, you're installing a network that is like more robust than what you would find on the retail marketplace. it's monitored 24 7 by a dedicated managed service provider it's instant on all the time for residents and it basically gets rid of most if not all of the issues that folks run into with connecting to the internet so things like contracts and deposits and credit checks and purchasing or leasing equipment all those barriers and complications to connectivity are really just kind of out the window as soon as they move in or once the network is established as long as they know their username and password, they connect and they're instantly online in a way they go.

25:29Love it. Adianka, what if someone wants to donate or contribute? Well, how would they do that? Well, I don't know that I would say that they should donate to Education Superhighway per se, but I would say that if you are a business owner and you're concerned about connectivity, you're concerned about affordable internet access, one, get involved in the conversation that's happening in your state. Every state now has a state broadband office. They are actively figuring out how they're going to address connectivity, affordability, devices, digital literacy. Every state has a plan that was recently approved by NTIA, a digital equity plan.

26:03So there is a plan for your state. It includes a workforce development component. It includes just details on how they plan to address all the three legs of that stool. And there is a place for business owners in that, whether you want to contribute to the workforce development curriculums or training to make sure that folks know how to leverage technology related to your business, whether you want to donate to organizations that are actively doing this work in your state. Most states now have a digital literacy council or digital equity council. So there's work happening on the ground where you are.