INTERNET
TO SPAN
THE
DIGITAL
DIVIDE
CRISTINA ROUVALIS
When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, Allen Charles Langston’s two teenage children scrambled to keep up with their remote classes at Cornell High School in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. Without home internet service, they pounded out hours of homework on tiny phone screens and traveled to public spaces to connect to free Wi-Fi.
“It was tough,” Langston said. “My daughter went to the library a lot.” The technical problems exacerbated the already jarring problems of his children transitioning from in-person classes — surrounded by their friends — to the isolation of remote learning.
Their virtual classroom experience improved dramatically in August when they gained access to free high-speed internet. The Langstons and other families living in the Coraopolis-Neville Island, New Kensington-Arnold, and Homewood neighborhoods have signed up for an innovative program called Every1online. “It’s great,” said Langston, the assistant basketball coach at Cornell High School. “It’s made everything much easier.”
Every1online is a joint venture between Meta Mesh Wireless Communities, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit, the School of Computer Science’s CS Pathways program, and a host of other community partners. As part of the pilot phase that began during the summer of 2020, the Langstons and other families are able to get online using the internet services of neighboring businesses and residences. Meta Mesh installs access points on the exterior of buildings, projecting unused donated bandwidth to create pockets of public Wi-Fi.
The team intends for the pilot program to act as a stopgap measure only. “Ultimately, we don’t want to depend on a neighbor’s ability to donate bandwidth,” said Sam Garfinkel (DC 2020), interim executive director of Meta Mesh Wireless Communities and CMU master’s in rhetoric recipient.
Sam Garfinkel (DC 2020), far right, and Meta Mesh team members installing Wi-Fi equipment at the water tower in Coraopolis.
The team’s work now focuses on a more permanent solution — mounting an antenna on top of the Cathedral of Learning in Oakland and directing the wireless signal to other high points throughout the community, such as the water tower in Coraopolis. These towers then direct the signal to equipment installed in nearby homes. A larger dish antenna provides extended range, allowing it to cover anyone in Coraopolis or Neville Island with line of sight to the water tower. To provide the necessary bandwidth, Meta Mesh purchases bandwidth from KINBER, a statewide nonprofit.
Of course, building a nonprofit internet network has its share of challenges. The transmission of the signal relies on achieving a clear line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver, which buildings and trees often obstruct. “It’s been hard to find specialized laborers to climb radio and cell towers during the pandemic,” Garfinkel said. “Because this is a novel project, timelines have been charted as we work through each aspect.”
For years, educators, policymakers and others have warned the public about the inequities caused by the digital divide, the term for the gulf between people who can afford high-speed internet and those who remain priced out. COVID-19 laid bare those inequities and widened the gap as some students have fallen behind during hybrid and fully online instruction. The issue pierced the public consciousness after a photo of a child doing his homework in the parking lot of Taco Bell went viral.
“CS Pathways exists to level the playing field. We believe that all students — especially those who are traditionally underresourced and underestimated in STEM fields — deserve access to the sorts of programs that help them decide if theirs is a future in computer science.”
Ashley Williams Patton, founding director of CS Pathways at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, works on solutions to these inequities. “Access to computer science isn't equitable, with many students finding their journey limited by circumstances outside of their control,” said Patton. “CS Pathways exists to level the playing field. We believe that all students — especially those who are traditionally underresourced and underestimated in STEM fields — deserve access to the sorts of programs that help them decide if theirs is a future in computer science.” In most years, CS Pathways offers free summer camp programs for middle school students, but in 2020, the pandemic prevented these offerings.
Patton and Maggie Hannon, associate director of Carnegie Mellon’s Simon Institute and a member of the project, decided to pivot and ask overworked teachers how they could help.
Teachers pointed to the lack of access to technology as the cause for some of their students falling further behind. “How are we supposed to teach online if our students don’t have access? The technology isn’t there or there is only one computer at home,’” Patton recalls them saying.
Patton said students who struggle to find public internet expend too much energy doing basic assignments. “There’s a huge cost to students not having safe, reliable internet.” There’s also the potential for privacy issues. “If a child is going to have a private conversation with a school official in a crowded parking lot, that is going to be a problem,” Garfinkel said. “It just becomes clear that students should have access to a private, password-protected connection that they can safely access from their homes.”
Garfinkel said reliable home internet is not a given for many families. Most people assume reliable home internet to be prevalent, but Garfinkel holds a different view. “We realized that it is not just a few people who can’t afford a $90 internet bill every month,” she said. “It’s middle class, working folks, people who have been negatively impacted economically by this pandemic.”
Even families with existing home networks sometimes found themselves overburdened by the unusual circumstances. “What happens when you’re working from home and you have three school-aged children who need the internet?” Garfinkel said.
“It just becomes clear that students should have access to a private, password-protected connection that they can safely access from their homes.”
While the technology belongs to Meta Mesh, Patton can tap Carnegie Mellon’s faculty and student resources for technical advice. But she said the project is as much about community links as technological ones. “How do we work with the community? How do we make sure that the people who are most in need are being reached? How do we make sure it doesn’t cost the communities anything?” As part of the SCS’s goal to become a good partner and increase access to computer science skills, Patton works closely with the other community groups in the project, including the staff at the Cornell School District in Coraopolis, New Kensington Arnold District and Homewood Children’s Village, a nonprofit that helps children and their families.
Kristopher Hupp, director of technology & instructional innovation at Cornell School District, called the lack of technology in many homes a huge issue. “People just don’t understand that children who come from economically challenged circumstances sometimes don’t have access to books, computers, devices and the internet,” said Hupp.
Even students who have smartphones at home may not be able to connect to video calls. Some students have no access at all. To address the problem, the school district installed free Wi-Fi in green spaces in town, including a pavilion on school property. However, on cold or rainy days, it was hard for students to work outside. Langston’s children , 15-year-old Malia and 14-year-old Allen, were able to put together a patchwork of solutions to complete their work and even remained on the honor roll despite all the roadblocks.
But many other students fell behind, Hupp said. One potential reason is the stigma associated with not having wireless access. “Some students do not want to explain that they were unable to complete the assignment because they do not have internet access. Students sometimes find that taking a zero is preferred to admitting that they do not have internet access. It is tough because teachers also don’t want to put students on the spot in front of other students.” To remedy this, the school district calls parents to ask if they have internet access and explain the Everyone1online options for access.
Access issues extend beyond families with school-age children. Many older people also need the internet to access basic services. The program is open to the entire community and covers the full cost of internet service for the first year. After that, the partnership is seeking sponsors from the community to pick up the ongoing costs.
The project has received additional support from foundations in Pittsburgh. Sam Reiman, director of the Richard King Mellon Foundation, said, “The Foundation was pleased to support this important effort to give more children ready internet access. And the remote learning environments necessitated by COVID made internet access not just important, but essential.
“Internet access is just as important to successful learning today as paper and pencils were for prior generations,” said Reiman. Patton agrees. Students who can’t access the internet during the pandemic could end up losing a year or more of education. “They won’t make it up.
We’re committed to making sure that community members are able to access a resource that we think should be a utility.” ■