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Q&A
Q&A on strategies to connect holdouts and address the digital divide
2:21:42
·
3 min
Council Member Gutiérrez leads a Q&A session with Michael Santorelli and Andrew Rasiej, focusing on strategies to connect holdouts and address the broader digital divide.
- Discusses reasons why people aren't connected, including affordability and perceived relevance
- Explores the need for targeted outreach and community-based approaches
- Highlights the importance of digital literacy and skills training, not just infrastructure
- Addresses the growing digital divide due to emerging technologies like AI
Jennifer Gutiérrez
2:21:42
I think it's thank you so much Ash I think and Michael in your testimony you said that more effort should be focused on on the holdouts.
2:21:48
Right?
2:21:49
The people that are not necessarily connected or yeah.
2:21:52
The people that are not connected.
2:21:54
In your opinion, do you think that there is something more specific, like, that OTI should be should be focused on?
2:22:05
Right?
2:22:05
Some of the things that mister Psychoff focused on today.
2:22:08
NYCHA, for example, is, like, kind of leaving that outreach to the Internet service providers through Big Apple Connect.
2:22:14
Right?
2:22:14
They're door knocking.
2:22:15
What is something that OTI can be doing, the city should be doing?
2:22:20
I asked for data.
2:22:21
They don't have it.
2:22:22
Like, what are some of the reasons people aren't connected?
2:22:24
A lot of it was anecdotal.
2:22:25
But in your experience, what do you think what do you think we need to be doing?
2:22:29
How can we be even more targeted?
Michael Santorelli
2:22:32
Well, think as a first step, it's helpful to, like you said, try to figure out why people are online.
2:22:39
And the best information we have are just general from national surveys that always seem to come back to the same sort of reasons.
2:22:48
Affordability has been one but also tied into that is this notion of relevance or seeing that a connection might not be worth the investment of your resources.
2:22:57
Again if you're trying to weigh that against groceries or an electric bill then you know broadband.
2:23:02
If you don't view it as something that's essential to your life then you might cut that off of your budget.
2:23:07
But at the same time there are lots of other nuanced barriers across lots of different communities and just trying to understand what those are.
2:23:14
And they differ from older adults to low income households, low income households with children.
2:23:19
It goes on and on.
2:23:20
The only way to get that data at a large scale is just to go into the communities.
2:23:24
And there are programs that are working at the local level across the city in these communities trying to get them online.
2:23:32
Arguably the city could be trying to reach out to those groups and engage them and get information from them.
2:23:39
And just figuring out what the landscape is of those providers because again there's hall which is great but there are so many others across the five boroughs that are doing this at a much smaller scale that arguably need to be recognized and get more resources if they're proving to be successful.
2:23:57
So that's the roadmap that I've read that the mayor put out seems like a good first step but it seems like there's a lot more work that could be done to kind of bring it all together into a more ground up strategy to try to get more people online.
Andrew Rasiej
2:24:12
Tatso would you mind if I add to that So for years, we've been focusing on the physical infrastructure and the distribution.
2:24:21
I remember when Mike Bloomberg was mayor, he announced that 97% of the city was covered by broadband, and that was considered a win.
2:24:28
But 40% of the city's population couldn't afford it, so it didn't but that he didn't highlight that particular detail.
2:24:33
The digital divide is actually now worse than it's ever been, not because of the infrastructure, but because of the ability to use it is not in the hands of the people who need it the most.
2:24:44
And now, with the advent of AI, we are now approaching even a larger digital divide, not only between the citizens of New York and this technology, but the institutions that support those citizens also are not able to take advantage of the technology because the skills that they need to navigate these networks are not easily accessible.
2:25:03
So the funding that's focused on infrastructure and your criticism of OTI or the city's policies are great, but what we really need is a holistic plan that looks at the digital divide holistically, not just as physical infrastructure, whether it's mesh networks or whether it's broadband providers, but rather are we actually training New Yorkers to be able to use the technology at whatever cost or ability or even the quality of the connection.
2:25:27
If we don't get people to understand the potential of its use, there's no point in talking about the infrastructure.
Jennifer Gutiérrez
2:25:32
Mhmm.
2:25:33
Mhmm.
2:25:33
Thank you.
2:25:34
Thank you.
2:25:36
Thank you all so much.
2:25:37
Thank you for your testimony.
Andrew Rasiej
2:25:39
Thank you.
Jennifer Gutiérrez
2:25:40
Thanks for sticking around.