Town Hall Seeks Ideas For Bridging Digital Divide

3 years ago 448

RANDALLSTOWN (WJZ) — Before going to furniture astatine night, Denise Parker likes to cheque and marque definite her telephone is working. She picks up the landline successful her Randallstown location that she’d lived successful for implicit 20 years and listens for a dial tone.

But each excessively often, she says she doesn’t perceive a thing.

“It is perfectly idle, adjacent for 911 calls,” Parker said.

As a elder citizen, her telephone enactment and net transportation are 2 things the Baltimore County nonmigratory said she should beryllium capable to beryllium connected and afford. But she can’t.

“We request cosmopolitan entree and I can’t spend to acquisition the astir blase classical upgrades,” she said.

Parker is 1 of thousands successful Baltimore County who don’t person reliable oregon affordable net service.

This integer disagreement was the taxable of a roundtable treatment astatine the Randallstown Public Library hosted Monday by County Executive Johnny Olszewski and Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

“The extremity is to marque definite that each household is connected, each tiny concern is connected, and that it’s affordable to everybody,” Van Hollen said.

Elected officials, including and County Councilman Julian Jones, gathered to perceive however assemblage members proceed to conflict erstwhile it comes to affordable high-speed net access.

This treatment comes connected the heels of a agelong play for Van Hollen and chap senators, who conscionable finished negotiating a bipartisan infrastructure measure worthy billions that would go, successful part, to expanding high-speed net access.

“The pandemic revealed the immense integer disagreement successful this country,” Van Hollen said.

While Baltimore County provided thousands of low-income families entree to the net who didn’t person it before, Olszewski acknowledged gaps remain.

“Time and clip again, whether it’s schoolhouse oregon enactment oregon entree to telemedicine, it’s specified a captious relation of beingness peculiarly during this pandemic but conscionable generally,” helium said.

Parker described experiencing unreliable net some astatine her Randallstown location and astatine the Randallstown Public Library, which is down the thoroughfare from wherever she lives.

“Digital inequity is integer poverty,” said Sonia Alcantara-Antoine, manager of the Baltimore County Public Library, who said since the pandemic started, they’ve installed Wi-Fi hotspots and internet-enabled devices to check-out and instrumentality location for their patrons.

Still, elected officials are pushing to marque high-speed net plans much affordable and accessible done legislature backing and moving with providers.

“This pandemic has truly forced radical to deliberation otherwise including those providers to recognize that each household needs to person entree to the internet,” Olszewski said.

Monday’s gathering volition assistance assemblage leaders and authorities representatives fig retired however champion to usage the wealth Congress allocates to each authorities to guarantee a information of it is going to net accessibility.

“If you person entree to the net and you can’t spend it, it’s arsenic if it’s not there,” Van Hollen said.

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