Racial discrimination is an important barrier to broadband access

Racial discrimination is an important barrier to broadband access in the United States. This was one of the conclusions of the report entitled “Digital Denied: The Impact of Systemic Racial Discrimination on Home-Internet Adoption”, published by Fress Press, a DC-based public interest group. Income inequalities do play an important role on lack of Internet access, but the study noticed disproportionately low broadband deployment in communities of color. Moreover, in rural areas, “there is even more at play than income disparity, with a consistent digital divide for deployment that is apparently based on race and ethnicity alone.” The report concludes that these marginalized groups often have a high level of demand for internet access, but the high price of service, coupled with structural economic and sociological factors associated with race and ethnicity, pose barriers to internet deployment and adoption.