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Perspectives From CENIC: What Home Broadband Requirements are Necessary for Students (and Families) During COVID-19 and Beyond?

Categories RENS & NRENS Equity & Access CENIC Perspectives

Tags broadband calren digital divide human rights people-centered internet digital divide equity and access research and education

If we have learned anything during this pandemic, it is that access to broadband is now a social determinant of health, education, work, and economic security.

In 2003, the State of California awarded a grant to CENIC to focus on speeding one-gigabit broadband to all Californians by 2010, or, in California shorthand, One Gigabit or Bust. Seventeen years later, most of the 12,000 institutions that connect to CENIC have achieved gigabit status -- with many school districts, libraries, and community colleges connected at 10 Gbps (and a few at 100 Gbps); almost all universities and medical centers at 100 Gbps (or multiple 100 Gbps), with some preparing to connect at 400 Gbps over next 12-36 months. 

Twenty million Californians have access to CENIC, one of the most robust broadband research and education networks on the planet, from their schools, libraries, colleges, and universities. But not all CENIC members have gigabit access and many of those who do not have access are in communities where no one has broadband access: not from their homes and business, or from hospitals and clinics, or from their schools and libraries. CENIC long ago recognized that joining in partnership with communities, with business and government leaders, and with our private sector telecommunications partners, was the only way to ensure that broadband access would be the rising tide that lifts all boats.

Now we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic, where our homes have become our schools, our workplaces, and our clinics via remote education, work, and telehealth, with access to broadband the lifeline that ensures continuity in all of these areas. It is now time to renew and redouble our efforts towards “One Gigabit or Bust,” this time for all Californians at home, as well as at school and work. In the following white paper, CENIC President and CEO Louis Fox discusses what broadband requirements and policy considerations are necessary for students (and families) during COVID-19 and beyond.

Read the Perspective & Download >

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