‘Dark age’ of internet access not acceptable for Pierce County and Washington state

Thanks to COVID-19, we now know more about the pernicious effect inequality has on health outcomes. At the same time, the pandemic has exposed us to other less-obvious ways that inequality begets more inequality.

One example deserving our immediate attention, in part because not only is it so urgent but its solution is within reach, is the need to ensure all residents have affordable access to broadband internet services.

The problems created for those without access to broadband shouldn’t need repeating. Today we must attend school, shop, visit our doctor and take care of other essential daily needs through the internet.

The internet has become a vital form of transportation, virtually transporting us around our community to meet needs and attend to affairs. We know now that we cannot have a fair education system, a strong economy or a functioning health system without all residents having robust access to the web.

On the education front, experts are predicting that online education will exacerbate the vast inequalities in educational outcomes. As the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, Robin Lake, recently warned: “Achievement gaps will become achievement chasms.”

Lake’s prediction is partly because too many families lack reliable, effective or even any access to affordable and fast internet services. Nationwide, over a third of Native American, Black and Hispanic students live in homes that lack access to either a computer or the internet.

While the “digital exclusion’”problem is less pronounced in Washington State and Pierce County than elsewhere in our nation, the US Census Bureau recently estimated that over 15 percent of Pierce households have either no access to the internet, or access only through their cell phone service.

Many providers of critical supportive services in our community have had to expose staff to COVID-19 in order to provide services to clients unable to receive them virtually.

It’s a dire problem. But also one we can and must solve.

We applaud recent legislation in Olympia addressing this problem through grants and loans to local governments and the establishment of a new state office to monitor and coordinate access to broadband service.

We’re glad that state officials have set 2024 as a goal for when all Washingtonians will have access to affordable broadband.

Likewise, the Pierce County Council last year commissioned a report on broadband access to identify actions it could take to increase and improve access. The report aptly termed broadband the “fourth utility” (along with water, electricity and sewer), and uncovered significant unmet needs.

In some areas of Pierce that theoretically have service, the internet is neither fast nor reliable. In parts of the county, internet speeds drop to 5 percent of the national standard. Last year the News Tribune found some areas of the county to be in what it labeled “The Internet Dark Ages.”

Thanks to such state and county initiatives, we know what it takes to bring affordable broadband services to all Pierce households: public investments by state and local governments; closer partnerships between private, public and nonprofit entities; greater coordination at the state level; and more leadership within local governments.

Full participation in society requires access to broadband. It is the fundamental function of our governments to provide this to all in our community. It’s time to take internet provision out of the nearly exclusive hands of the private sector and put it more squarely into the public’s.

In short, we need to remove the word “plan” from the state and Pierce County’s action plans; we need to start seeing the action.

Make broadband the fourth utility that it is.

Cynthia Stewart is president of the Tacoma-Pierce County League of Women Voters. Reach her at stewdahl@comcast.net. Pamela Duncan is president and CEO of Metropolitan Development Council. Reach her at PDuncan@MDC-Hope.org.