ConnectNYC: Mayor Bloomberg's Attempt at Solving the Digital Divide

-- By ConradJohnson - 31 March 2013

Introduction: ConnectNYC

On October 19, 2012, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg launched ConnectNYC, a competition to install free fiber cable wiring in growing businesses across the City’s five boroughs. The purpose of this competition is to encourage small and medium-sized businesses in unwired or under-wired buildings to apply for free fast-track wiring that would ultimately provide or improve access to high-speed broadband internet. Companies would apply through a competitive process that will make awards based on a demonstration of how additional connectivity would help them grow their business. Ultimately, by the end of the second year of the program, the City expects Time Warner Cable and Cablevision (partners in the initiative) to commence free fiber build-out for 240 competition-winning businesses.

ConnectNYC is part of a larger set of new initiatives planned by Mayor Bloomberg “designed to address specific challenge areas the City faces to ensure NYC is a global leader in connectivity and technology in the 21st century” (description of other iniatives. When taken as a whole, Mayor Bloomberg’s new initiatives appear to be designed to capitalize on the growth currently taking place within the City’s technology sector. The Mayor stated so himself, noting his intent on supporting the “growing technology industry” that “is diversifying the City’s economy and creating the jobs of the future.” “To support those jobs,” said the Mayor, “we need to help the industry get the resources it needs – whether that means more qualified engineers or broadband connections.” Thus, as part of his tireless pursuit to make NYC rival Silicon Valley as the center for technological work and innovation, Mayor Bloomberg recognizes the benefits of supporting technological growth in a variety of sectors. Yet, the Mayor insists that these initiatives, particularly ConnectNYC, are truly geared toward decreasing the “digital divide” – the inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to information and communication technologies – in the City. The Mayor believes tt can achieve this because “it will make sure more businesses and more New Yorkers can get connected.” However, despite the Mayor’s assertions and any potential benefits of the program, ConnectNYC fails to truly serve the underserved in pursuit of increased digital connectivity.

Benefits

It would be unfair to state that nothing positive could stem from an initiative like ConnectNYC. In fact, that notion would be entirely incorrect. The mere fact that this initiative was created demonstrates a crucial awareness by Mayor Bloomberg and other politicians of the importance of accessible internet for the City’s population. As City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn noted, this effort to “improve access to high-speed broadband come[s] at a time when our city’s businesses and residents depend on the internet more now than ever before.” What these politicians are realizing is that internet access, particularly broadband in NYC, is the infrastructure of the modern age and a basic necessity, not just for tech businesses, but for every business. Thus, ConnectNYC could harness market dynamics and incentives for the private sector to expand New York’s broadband infrastructure.

Furthermore, in the digital economy, it is of great importance that our politicians recognize that removing impediments to internet access will allow the skilled minds produced in poorer places in the city to participate in higher-value activities without relocating, thus directly producing better lives for their community. ConnectNYC could achieve this goal by removing the cost of fiber build-out for smaller businesses in underserved communities. The cost of a wiring build-out is often identified as one of the biggest hurdles to getting businesses connected to broadband internet, with the average cost being approximately $50,000 per business. However, although eliminating this cost could be very beneficial for some small businesses, one of the requirements for achieving the true benefits of a digital economy by reducing the “digital divide” is to provide unimpeded access to the network, regardless of ability to pay.

Failure's to Adress the Digital Divide

For ConnectNYC, free isn’t free, and the ability to pay may still be a factor. Once selections have been made, businesses chosen to participate will be required to sign a one-year service contract with a participating Internet Service Provider (Time Warner Cable and Cablevision) at negotiated market rates prior to being eligible to receive the fiber build-out. This service contract would thus maintain impediments towards access to information and communication technologies that would continue to be felt by those in low-income communities.

A purported justification for this service fee is that the two year program will equal $12 million, with presumably most of the costs for the build-outs falling on the ISPs. Yet, one can only assume that the ISP’s efforts to expand the broadband infrastructure into other areas of the City were inevitable, given that it would make proper business sense to extend their services into new developing communities. ConnectNYC simply ensures that the ISP’s consumer base grows. Furthermore, this argument fails to recognize that ConnectNYC provides that the ISPs have final say on whom the awards are given to. Although the City will create a list of finalists by considering factors such as the potential to improve broadband infrastructure in underserved areas, the ISP’s final determination will be based on the feasibility of wiring the finalist’s location. As a result, this will continue to prevent broadband internet accessibility in certain communities.

Similarly, the City (through ConnectNYC) has only assured that a minimum of 25% of the overall award value will be granted to businesses located in Industrial Business Zones. This could potentially mean that only a small number of the award winners come from the most underserved areas, again failing to live up to it’s alleged purpose of decreasing the digital divide in the City.

Conclusion

Ultimately, although ConnectNYC provides wiring and reduces the number of “digital deserts” in the City, it still presents impediments to real access to networks. As such, it also fails to realize its maximum economic potential. The ultimate determination as to whether the digital divide is being addressed will come when the City reveals the award winners on March 1, 2013.

It seems to me that the primary difficulty here lies in taking all of this at anywhere near face value. What we have is a small subsidy ($12m over two years: chicken feed on both sides) to the cable thugs to go out and make some television commercials for themselves with squeaky clean young businesses while getting around to a few buildings they haven't bothered with, because they're just marginally not good enough to bother about. But if the city will pay them $12m to get around to them.....

This isn't bandwidth policy. This is a little tip that was thrown around like small change when some other deals were being done. TW Cable and Cablevision have more than that in back taxes they haven't paid, I daresay. We can solemnly discuss whether it's good or bad but the truth is it's just hype. The actual issues of how to connect communities in are $100s millions wide in NYC, $10s billions wide across the US, and they don't have to do with fiber-to-business. They have to do with giving everybody, across the continent, realistic broadband at affordable prices, which the US network operators don't want to do. Nothing the size of this little program has anything to do with that, and what your essay might want to be about is the way in which little stuff on this scale looks busy, and keeps Americans from demanding what other people in the world already have.

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