One in four Californians have no wired Internet connection at home

Most Californians – 84 percent – have access to high-speed Internet, and the number is increasing. That’s great news, but it’s important to recognize the limits of how many Californians are connecting to broadband.

Mobile broadband service is no substitute for wired broadband. Think about it: it would be tough to apply for a job, access medical records, or complete a homework assignment on a smartphone or tablet. According to a recent study from the California Emerging Technology fund, though, much of California’s increased connectivity comes from smartphone use – broadband connection via mobile device has doubled in the last year, while connection by laptop or desktop has remained flat.

Fourteen percent of Californians are "underconnected" because they can only get online using their smartphones. Combine that with the 13 percent of Californians that have no broadband access at all, and about one in four residents of the Golden State are underconnected or unconnected.

Computers are expensive, and it tends to be marginalized communities – the poor, minorities, seniors – that lack access to broadband and the devices to use that access. For example, 30 percent of Spanish-speaking Latinos can only get online via smartphone. More needs to be done to ensure these communities have access to broadband and the wired devices to utilize the full potential broadband connectivity.

"We need to invest more funds in getting low-income people, particularly school children, devices that work at home that are not smartphones," said Tamara Straus, a spokesperson with the California Emerging Technology Fund. "It's really important for education and digital literacy. That's really the divide."

Link:

Quinn: The growth in 'underconnected' Californians should alarm us (SiliconValley.com, July 31, 2016)