On the morning of Aug. 8, as the workweek whirred to life, the internet went down in parts of Amagansett and Springs. Optimum, the East End’s leading broadband and TV provider, apologized to customers and promised to restore service promptly. Still, the frustration was palpable, with outrage expressed in offline messages.
At around 10:20 a.m., screens sprang to life and the two-hour inconvenience was largely forgotten.
But for about 28.2 million homes in the United States — 6 percent of the population — a permanent state of digital disconnection is an everyday reality. According to Evan Marwell, chief executive and founder of Education SuperHighway, a nonprofit that’s dedicated to bridging the gap to broadband connectivity, the reason is not entirely because remote and rural locations make access challenging. Instead, he said, 18 million households, home to 47 million people, are offline because they simply cannot afford an internet connection.
Interviewed at his Sagaponack summer home, Mr. Marwell, a self-described “serial entrepreneur” who also lives in San Francisco, explained that his firm, founded in 2012 to bring high-speed internet to American schools, had switched its focus to households in the wake of Covid-19.
By 2019, he said, the company had fulfilled its goal, connecting 99.6 percent of the nation’s schools to broadband, up from 10 percent in 2012. He was preparing to shutter the nonprofit in 2020 when Covid-19 hit. The pandemic widened social and economic divisions in many ways, among them shining a spotlight on the millions of American homes that lacked access to high-speed internet. When schools shifted to online learning, it created what has since been called “the homework gap,” disproportionately impacting low-income, Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous students.
“But there was no political will to actually solve the issue — i.e., no one was willing to pay for it,” Mr. Marwell said. Without it, nothing could be accomplished.
All that changed in January 2021, with Joe Biden in the White House pledging to invest $20 billion in the nation’s largest-ever broadband affordability and adoption program. Mr. Marwell received a call from Jim Shelton, the Deputy Secretary of Education under President Obama and then the chief investment officer at Blue Meridian Partners, a charity made up of wealthy philanthropists focused on reducing childhood poverty.
“Evan, what are you going to do about the home broadband problem?” Mr. Shelton asked him, pointing out that the political will had shifted.
“I knew there wasn’t anyone else who was positioned the way we were to do this work. So I said, okay, if you’ll help me raise $13 million.”
He raised $20 million, and Education Superhighway 2.0 was born. “Our V2 mission is to close the broadband affordability gap and get high-speed internet to the 18 million households in America that have a wire at their door but cannot afford the monthly cost,” Mr. Marwell said.
According to the 2020 census, 82.6 percent of homes in East Hampton have broadband service, which is slightly below the national average. Childless or elderly people live in some of these homes, but in others are families with schoolchildren, who during the pandemic faced being cut off from online learning, when schools went remote and public spaces like libraries, offering access to free Wi-Fi, were also closed.
Adam Fine, superintendent of the East Hampton School District, said that although the number of households needing assistance with connectivity during the lockdown was not high, the district provided help where needed. In Springs, said District Superintendent Debra Winter, the biggest issue was that cell service could not support the high volume of people who were online during school hours. “It is still a problem for so many, especially those near the water,” she said.
Then in July, an audit by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s office determined that the Empire State Development’s New N.Y. Broadband Program had fallen short of its mission to bring universal broadband access to New Yorkers.
How can Education SuperHighway help?
As part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the Biden administration established the Affordable Connectivity Program, which provides a $30-per-month subsidy for qualifying households. It is administered by the Federal Communications Commission.
Households with incomes at or below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines are eligible for the monthly discounts. So are people on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) or Medicaid, residents in free or subsidized public housing, recipients of Pell grants, and families with children on free and reduced-price lunch plans. Low-income households on tribal lands can apply for $75 in monthly broadband subsidies.
Unfortunately, said Mr. Marwell, only 22 percent of eligible households nationwide have enrolled in the federal program, often due to the daunting application process, which can take up to 45 minutes and requires a lot of documentation. Additionally, he noted, many undocumented people are too afraid to apply.
“Education SuperHighway is working to significantly increase this percentage by partnering with states, cities, school districts, and community organizations,” said Mr. Marwell. On the firm’s website are various “roadmaps” and “toolkits” to guide schools, elected officials, community leaders, health care providers, housing authorities, and corporations on how to help individuals get connected.
Specifically for K-12 students, Education Superhighway works with regional and national internet service providers to identify unconnected households and help them optimize their use of federal funding.
The organization has also developed a mobile website — www.getacp.org (“because everyone has a cellphone,” said Mr. Marwell) — that assists households eligible for the lengthy application process, offering help in English, Spanish, and two forms of Chinese. Applicants are helped to collect the relevant documentation and to understand the best way to qualify. “There are a dozen different ways, some easier than others,” Mr. Marwell said.
Additionally, the website lists local service providers that participate in the $30 subsidy program. On the East End, Optimum, AT&T, and Verizon all participate.
“We expect to be making getacp.org even more powerful in the coming months, in partnership with the F.C.C.,” Mr. Marwell said. No home left offline is Education Superhighway’s goal.