“We look at it as a quality of life issue,” said Amanda Murphy, spokeswoman with Connect Ohio, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving broadband service in the state. “It makes daily life easier.”
In Montgomery, Miami, Greene, Butler and Warren counties, about 81.6 percent of residents own a computer and 84.1 percent have some form of access to the Internet.
The Internet access includes public use through libraries and access through friends and family members, according to a telephone survey released this summer by Connect Ohio.
Another key finding of the survey was that the portion of Miami Valley residents with high-speed Internet in their homes increased to 74.1 percent this year from 61 percent in 2008.
Even though Miami Valley residents have a better adoption rate of high-speed Internet than the state average — 66 percent — Ohio still ranks in the bottom 12 states nationally for broadband usage at home, according to a report by the telecommunications administration with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
“We have seen a plateau in the state of Ohio,” Murphy said. “We were at 66 percent for the state this year, and we were at 66 percent last year.”
Access to broadband Internet varies by demographics, but the less a person earns and the less education they have obtained, the less likely they are to have high-speed Internet.
Tim Haywood Jr., 24, of Dayton, said he used to have high-speed Internet at home, but he is now unemployed and cannot afford the service. Haywood said he takes the bus to the Sinclair Community College Library about three times a week when he needs to use the Internet to apply for jobs and stay in touch with friends.
His hunt for work would be more persistent and convenient if he could search the Web at home, but he described Internet access as a “luxury” that is a low-priority for him from a budgeting standpoint.
“I just don’t have money right now,” he said. “It’s just not really that important in my life right now, because I’ve got other problems going on.”
Despite gains in recent years, a “digital divide” still exists between rural and urban households and people of various races, income levels and educational attainments, said Shawn Cassiman, assistant professor of social work with the University of Dayton.
Minorities are much less likely to own a computer and use high-speed Internet, and the same is also true of low-income earners, people without high school diplomas and people who live in rural areas, she said.
Cassiman said being on the wrong side of the digital divide puts people at a serious disadvantage because knowledge of computers and the Internet is essential to finding and working many kinds of jobs.
“It’s not just a matter of convenience, but it’s important to building job skills,” she said. “Usually, when you don’t have access to broadband, you don’t have folks actually using computers all that much.”
A report published last year by the Federal Communications Commission found that only 40 percent of adults making less than $20,000 annually had broadband Internet, compared to 93 percent of adults earning $75,000 per year. Meanwhile, only one-quarter of people with a high school degree had adopted high-speed Internet, compared to 86 percent of college graduates.
There are a handful of barriers preventing the expansion of broadband services to all households, experts said.
More than half of Miami Valley residents surveyed without broadband Internet in their homes said they do not need the service or they do not own a computer, according to the Connect Ohio survey.
But about 20 percent of respondents without broadband surveyed said the service was too expensive. Of the people without computers, many said they do not own the devices because they are too expensive or too complicated.
Libraries and community centers typically help bridge the digital divide by providing free Internet to all visitors. Some people are also using their smartphones for Internet access, but high-end phones and their services are usually still pricey.
Connect Ohio continues to work to increase statewide awareness about the benefits of using high-speed Internet by offering free computer training sessions at more than 200 locations, representatives said.
The organization also routinely evaluates the demand for broadband services in neighborhoods where it is nonexistent, and then shares the information with Internet providers who may be interested in expanding in those areas.
Affordability of broadband continues to be a serious issue, but there are programs that help low-income families acquire the service, said Bill Callahan, project director of Connect Your Community Project with OneCommunity, which is helping bring Internet access to low-income households in northeast Ohio.
Providers such as Comcast offers discounted service to families with children who are eligible to receive free or reduced lunches through their schools, he said. Callahan also said purchasing computer equipment is also a challenge for many people, and it is important to connect them with resources that offer used or low-cost technology.
“We believe pretty strongly that if you make an effort to provide service to low-income households, once they figure out how to use it and save money and create value in their lives, many people will become regular customers,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-0749 or cfrolik@coxohio.com
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