The (Dis)connected City
Toronto's new universal Wi-Fi is an opportunity to bridge the digital divide
On September 6, 2006, Toronto Hydro Telecom's free wireless Internet service, called One Zone, was launched in the downtown core amid much hype and fanfare. The service is the largest wireless zone in North America, providing Internet access to anyone who works, lives, studies or plays in the downtown core. In a city where one-quarter of households have no Internet access, has the city hit on a solution to the digital divide or has it missed a critical opportunity?
Cost is the greatest barrier for non-users of the Internet, followed by lack of access to computers. This is particularly true among households with incomes below $30,000.
One Zone launched in the financial district, an area where the majority of people already have Internet access at their desks, many condominium owners are equipped with in-home wireless or other Internet services and myriad coffee shops offer wireless hotspots. Although the city-owned utility company plans to blanket the entire city in three years, the ‘free' service will have long expired, replaced by a fee service of $29 per month, commencing in March 2007.
Admittedly, the proposed fee is modest compared to other Internet services, however it is still prohibitive for many low-income families, raising renewed questions about the existence—and persistence—of a digital divide in this city.
In a technology-dependent society such as ours, computer access and proficiency, as well as cellphones, personal digital assistants, pagers and familiarity with the terminology of communications are increasingly determiners of success. People who lack access to these things are at a growing disadvantage.
According to Statistics Canada, approximately 88 per cent of households with incomes of $86,000 or more used the Internet last year, compared to 61 per cent of those with incomes below that level. But such statistics don't tell the whole story. Knowing that a person had access to the Internet over a broad period of time doesn't tell you how, where or how often they were using it.
Errol Young (erroly@sympatico.ca) who runs computers@home, a literacy project designed to put computers in the homes of students so that they can write, create and do homework, says the digital divide is still very much a reality. "It's basically the same as it was back in 2000. Middleclass kids have no problem; they have computers at home. But working class kids don't have a computer at home. They have some access to Internet at school and are sort of entering into the digital age through cellphones and instant messaging, but the Blackberry lifestyle is far away."
Poorer people not only have less access to technology, but the most vulnerable among them do not have the means to obtain the skills. What has emerged is a dual digital divide: those who do not use and have little or no interest in computers and those who are interested in using them but face barriers, such as cost, training or service availability (in rural areas, for example).
In StatsCan surveys, non-users of the Internet identified cost as the greatest barrier, followed by lack of access to computers or the Internet. This was particularly true among households with incomes below $30,000, which is roughly one-fifth of Toronto homes.
Among people who use the Internet, 90 per cent do so from home. For the remaining ten per cent, who use other locations such as friends, relatives or public libraries, there are obvious disadvantages. While in-home users can repeatedly access the Internet on demand, out-of-home users face such inconveniences as smaller windows of use, travel to and from access sites, per-use fees and the risk of not obtaining all the information they are looking for at the time they have access – all inconveniences that have serious repercussions for low income adults and students.
Will universal WiFi help eliminate critical access barriers in Toronto? Young is doubtful. "You need a WiFi-ready computer—at least a Pentium 4, not a Pentium 1—and most of these families don't have that. Plus, this isn't a free service. It's a paid service with a free window." Indeed, with poverty in Toronto increasingly concentrated in the inner suburbs, few of the city's low-income population will be able to take advantage of the free service period in the downtown core.
Other cities, such as Tempe, Arizona, Fredricton, New Brunswick and Nunavut, Iqualuit have rolled out free WiFi programs. As the sole shareholder of Toronto Hydro Telecom, has the City of Toronto missed a critical opportunity to serve the public interest and bridge the technological divide? By offering a universally free service or one that is free to low-income households, it would not only offer a host of benefits for the city's business and public services, it would eliminate the key cost barrier for low-income families.
With studies linking computer use and literacy skills, and showing that low-income people stand to benefit most from new technologies but are not using them, the opportunity for significant societal benefit exists in a free system. One Zone could be a gateway for many to develop computer skills, while enabling access to health and government services, employment information, shopping and other services.
While it wouldn't completely bridge the divide, One Zone is an opportunity to create a more level playing field, the results of which would have social and economic benefits for us all.
Read FSA Toronto's Prospects for Young Families report to see how life for working families has changed over the last 20 years: www.familyservicetoronto.org/policy/researchprojects.html
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