mobile phones

Broadband Internet service is available for nearly every house in New York City, yet less than half have adopted it. Barely a quarter of low income households pay for a high speed connection at home.

As PPH Policy Director Joshua Breitbart explains in this audio clip, Internet access on mobile phones brings connectivity to people where they  are on devices that they have already decided to pay for. This is a better way to get people online than trying to convince them to buy a new machine and pay for a new service.

• produced by Joshua Breitbart
• in 2008

At the City Council hearing on the white spaces resolution, Committee Chair Gale Brewer asked about the cost of white space devices. Dana Spiegel from NYCwireless explained that, like most new technology, the cost would start high then go down over time. PPH Policy Director Joshua Breitbart pointed out that the true cost would actually be a savings compared to what we spend now for Internet access and mobile phone calls. In this audio clip, he explains how delivering Internet connectivity to people's mobile phones is the most effective way to close the digital divide between those with high speed Internet access at home and those without.