Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Michael Santorelli, Director of the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School
2:15:03
·
158 sec
Michael Santorelli argues that the Internet Master Plan is a supply-side solution to a demand-side problem, emphasizing that broadband adoption issues cannot be solved solely by building infrastructure. He presents data showing high broadband availability in NYC but plateauing adoption rates despite available subsidies.
- Santorelli suggests focusing on convincing digital holdouts to get online, as availability and affordability are not the main barriers.
- He emphasizes the need for hyper-local efforts to demonstrate broadband relevance to unconnected households.
- Santorelli recommends the city support and scale up organizations experienced in driving broadband adoption through increased funding and assistance.
Michael Santorelli
2:15:03
Good afternoon.
2:15:04
My name is Michael Santarelli.
2:15:05
I am the director of the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School here at the street, a program that focuses on all things broadband here in New York City at the state level and across the country.
2:15:17
I'm going to make many of the same points that Andrew made but in a different way.
2:15:22
So getting back to the Internet master plan, that is a supply side solution to a demand side problem.
2:15:30
You can't build your way out of broadband adoption issues.
2:15:34
And the data shows that the Internet Master Plan is even more unnecessary now than when it was released in 2020.
2:15:41
We do know broadband availability in New York City and where there are not there's no service.
2:15:46
It's 99.98% availability across the city.
2:15:49
The state has released new data on that and it shows where the seven forty or so unserved and underserved locations are across the city.
2:15:59
That's great progress.
2:16:00
That should be celebrated.
2:16:02
At the same time broadband adoption rates in recent years have increased according to the Census Bureau but they've plateaued over the last few years even with widespread subsidies available making it free or very low cost to get online.
2:16:16
So respectfully these discussions need to focus on what the data are telling us and that more attention is needed to focus on convincing the digital holdouts to get online, final 10 or 25% that are not online because the conditions for broadband adoption seem pretty ideal with universal availability and the wide availability of subsidies and low cost or free options.
2:16:39
Just making cheap or free broadband available is not enough and we've seen that.
2:16:43
There's significant data showing that these subsidies move the adoption needle only so much.
2:16:50
To bring the rest of the unconnected households online, more needs to be done at the very hyper local level to show why broadband is relevant to digital holdouts and why they need to take the necessary steps to get a computer, sign up for a subscription, and they need to get a subsidy to help pay for it.
2:17:05
This is very hard work, very resource intensive work.
2:17:08
But fortunately, in New York is home to many organizations including Civic Hall and others that have great experience in doing this and have shown results in doing this.
2:17:19
And so respectfully, the city is best positioned to lift those organizations up with more funding and assistance to help scale them out.
2:17:27
And to the extent that more planning is needed there's more thinking and strategy strategizing needed to figure out how the city can strategize and come up with a plan for harnessing all the great work that's happening and spreading it out across all the boroughs.
2:17:40
Thank you.