Here are the key takeaways from a recent Federal Reserve Bank of NY study…

• This study introduces a new community-level measure of broadband affordability that considers local median monthly household income and costs of living relative to local costs for broadband.
• Low- and moderate-income communities pay a notably higher share of their income for broadband— 2.43% compared to 0.51% in wealthier areas—exceeding the FCC’s 2% affordability benchmark.
• In cities where broadband is less affordable, households are more likely to use slower or lower-quality plans due to cost or limited infrastructure. In areas with the least affordable broadband, 26.7% of households rely solely on mobile devices, limiting access to jobs, financial services, and other key resources.
• Data on broadband pricing is still scarce in small and rural areas, limiting the ability for businesses, government, and community anchor institutions to understand the economic costs and benefits of broadband infrastructure. This underscores the need for localized pricing data to support digital access research.

All very interesting, but I’m always a sucker for an equation to determine a community-level measure of broadband affordability. And this report has that too:

The numerator is the average price for the cheapest internet service plans offered by providers in the geography, and the denominator is the median monthly household income for the geography. This is multiplied by 100 to create a percentage measure of Relative Broadband Affordability experienced by households in a given geography. Relative Broadband Affordability is helpful for understanding the ability of households within a census tract or census place to pay for broadband relative to their median household income. However, to understand just how affordable broadband is to a community, it is important to compare it to other communities within their city.

Turns out affordability impacts the decision to go for mobile-only connection, as the graph below indicates.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society reports on a Digitunity report on home computer ownership…

One in seven households either have no computer at all or rely only on a smartphone for internet access. While smartphones provide convenient internet access and can be more portable and affordable than computers, they lack the functionality of large-screen computers. Access to large-screen computers (think laptops, desktops, and tablets) ensures continuous, on-demand access that a borrowed, shared, or public device doesn’t allow. A large-screen computer enables:

• Access to learning opportunities and earning educational and workforce credentials.
• Expanded options for employment, including remote work.
• Achieving upward economic mobility and long-term financial stability.
• Participating in community decisions and having their voices heard.
• Increased connection by being part of their community and reducing social isolation.
• Improved physical and mental health through access to healthcare and health information.
• Increased personal agency by finding and using information to make informed decisions about their lives.
• The article outlines the haves and the have-nots; there are no surprises.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has an interesting report on broadband affordability…

Existing data on broadband pricing is often limited to aggregate price estimates at the state level or for metropolitan areas. The FCC Urban Rate Survey, an annual survey of the fixed voice and broadband service rates offered to consumers in urban areas, aims to provide reasonable comparability benchmarks for fixed voice and broadband rates for universal service purposes.29 The
data provides information about providers in each state and the average rates offered for different broadband technologies, plans, and speeds, but does not offer information about serviced geographies within each state for each provider.30
This report uses the FCC Urban Rate Survey to illustrate associations between broadband speeds, technology type, and price. However, the broader analysis utilizes data from The Markup’s point-in time estimates of address-level broadband pricing data from cities,31 the “How We Uncovered Disparities in Internet Deals” dataset used to conduct a report on disparities in Internet speeds
offered for the same price in low-income versus middle-and-high income neighborhoods32 The data, collected in 2022, uses information from 800,000 Internet plans from four Internet service providers. Pricing information from these plans, representing the lowest price offered by each plan, is available at the address level for 38 cities and provides information about average download and
upload speeds offered for each plan.
There are limitations that come with using the Internet plan pricing data provided by The Markup. One, data is sampled from only one year (2022) and therefore cannot be used to illustrate changes in price over time. Two, the data often only contains pricing information for one or two providers per city, a phenomenon which is consistent with the way internet service providers often cover distinct geographies, however, it reduces variation in the data. The data, as it is used in this study, is only intended to provide illustrative, quantitative information on what broadband prices look like relative to median household income in cities but may or may not be representative.

It’s an interesting concept and I’d love to see a rural version of it. We don’t all define affordable by the same dollar amount (for any purchase!) so percentage of income makes sense. But the broadband services are not all the same and availability isn’t the same. What’s the cost of needing one service for speed and another for reliability? Or the cost of having no choices? These are factors that seem to be more prevalent in rural areas.

Connected Nation has a new report on Internet Insecurity in Rural America. I like the distinction between access and secure access. The best analogy I can think it the difference between having a reliable car or a junker. Most of us know the difference, many of us from experience. A reliable car gets you to work on time. Gets your kids to school. Is what you are happy to take a 3am when contractions start coming. A junker is a car that may cost you a lot of money in repairs or gas mileage. It is always a car you aren’t sure is going to get you where you are going and honestly you don’t want your kids to drive it at night.

Connected Nation recognizes…

Connected Nation (CN) believes in the importance of sustained, reliable internet connectivity for every household. In this report, CN looks at “internet insecure” households whose internet adoption has been in flux. What we found underscores a need to address the issue of internet insecurity: not only do Americans need to get connected, but to benefit from broadband, they must STAY connected.

They surveyed 2,600 rural households in Michigan and Colorado to learn about the impact of Internet insecurity. If they had been in Minnesota, I’d dig deeper into the specifics, although I imagine they are similar, but here I’ll keep it high level…

KEY FINDINGS:

• Roughly one-third (30.6%) of the surveyed population is internet insecure.

• Households with children are more likely to experience intermittent internet connectivity, with one-third (34.2%) of households with children under 18 living at home being internet insecure.

• People with disabilities are more likely to experience internet insecurity than people without disabilities.

• Nearly 9 out of 10 (87.1%) internet insecure respondents say they rely on locations outside of their home to access the internet.

• Despite irregular access to the internet, most of the internet insecure population (93.3%) still uses telehealth services.