Digital Redlining and Its Enduring Impact on Communities

When Wendyliz Martinez traveled from Pennsylvania to the Bronx to stay with her mom during the pandemic, she was looking for a way to balance childcare with her online graduate studies at Penn State.

Instead, she found that she was often interrupted by glitches during Zoom meetings, stuck refreshing the same websites and crowded into a corner of her mom’s one-bedroom apartment in the hope of getting a stronger Wi-Fi signal.

Martinez could’ve chalked up her mom’s spotty cable internet to a number of issues: a faulty router, the Wi-Fi setup or a slow speed tier, perhaps. But she suspected something else after her mom switched to a new router, only to find the speeds still lagging. 

If old equipment wasn’t to blame and Martinez’s mom was getting the fastest speeds she could afford in an area without other internet provider options, were other households in the neighborhood experiencing the same thing? Martinez decided to turn that question into a research project.

“I was one of the fellows for Library Futures that year, and I was still feeling the impact of the COVID pandemic,” Martinez said, referring to a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocacy for libraries. “I was interested in exploring that for the fellowship.”

Using US Census Bureau data, Martinez spent months mapping the state of internet connectivity in the Bronx. 

“I was interested in the mapping portion because I’m a visual person,” Martinez said. “I know my own kind of experience, and I have done research on Black studies, so I’m aware of historical implications and all that. But how does this actually look on a map?”

What she discovered confirmed her suspicion: Low-income neighborhoods in New York City had less access to high-speed internet than wealthier neighborhoods nearby.

In fact, the Bronx was one of the city’s worst-connected boroughs. 

But was the correlation between low-income neighborhoods and lack of adequate internet access an indication of deeper systemic issues?

A lot of researchers seemed to think so. 

The divide between households with access to high-speed internet and households without access is a nationwide issue. The sudden reliance on a decent internet connection during the pandemic revealed the extent of that divide, especially in education.

Following the pandemic, big policy changes, like the Affordable Connectivity Program, BEAD and myriad city and state-driven initiatives, seemed to pave the way for improved internet access.

In 2025, despite the abundance of studies pointing to the broadband divide in recent years and the progress from broadband divide initiatives, low-income households and communities of color are still behind when it comes to high-speed internet.

Americans need a decent internet connection for everything from applying for jobs to buying groceries, getting healthcare and staying plugged into their communities. Households with high-speed internet may take it for granted that within seconds, an entire world is at their fingertips, one not so easily accessed for homes where fast internet is still a luxury. 

What is digital redlining?

In 2017, Bill Callahan, co-founder of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and Connect Your Community, published a study that revealed that AT&T withheld fiber deployment in low-income neighborhoods throughout Cleveland.  

The report called the practice “digital redlining.”

The term echoes historic redlining when banks denied mortgages to middle-income and upper-income Black families during the 1940s with lasting effects over decades Digital redlining occurs when telecom internet service providers deploy upgrades to networks in wealthier parts of cities but leave low-income neighborhoods behind. 

As a result, low-income communities are often stuck on the middling speeds of legacy DSL networks — paying roughly the same monthly costs as wealthier neighborhoods across town that have fiber internet from the same ISP.  

Unlike redlining, however, digital redlining isn’t an illegal practice. Secondly, while both digital redlining and mortgage redlining disproportionately affect people of color, digital redlining is perpetuated based on income or return on investment first. 

In other words, since higher-income neighborhoods will assumedly sign up for upgraded fiber internet more quickly than low-income households, ISPs can earn back the money spent from deploying fiber internet to that area faster. Consequently, low-income communities are often the last to get faster internet, time and time again.

The discovery that some neighborhoods historically redlined by banks in Oakland, California, and Cleveland overlap with the same neighborhoods digitally redlined today indicates that these patterns of exclusion continually overlook communities of color.

“Probably the starkest example [of digital redlining] that I can think of is the Hope Village neighborhood in Detroit,” Sean Gonsalves, a reporter at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, told me. “This is a low-income neighborhood in Detroit, and in the height of the pandemic — this is an area that AT&T serves — there was a six-week internet outage.”

Since the internet is not considered a utility akin to water and power, universal service is not required, and ISPs build networks in markets that yield the highest profits.

Whether ISPs intended to discriminate when making these upgrades to their networks is inconsequential, although determining “intention” makes for tricky legal territory. 

“With an internet service provider…it really matters that the intent is not relevant,” said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. “They may not have meant to discriminate, but the end result is that someone doesn’t have access to the same tech support or the same marketing and sales folks.”

Subsequent reports by the NDIA pointed to instances of digital redlining in Dayton, Ohio, Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, among other cities.

Studies from other researchers followed suit with similar findings across the country, including in Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

In 2022, The Markup and the Associated Press published a study with evidence of digital redlining across 38 cities.

How infrastructure was meant to fix digital redlining

Following the pandemic, the federal government unveiled new legislation to make the internet more accessible and affordable.

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $90 billion to improve internet access, creating the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, or BEAD, and the Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP. Both programs were instrumental in heralding a new era of improved internet connectivity. 

BEAD is the largest federal investment in broadband to date, with $42.45 billion in funding set aside for deploying internet. The ACP provided a significant $30 to $75 monthly discount on internet bills for qualifying households. 

However, the IIJA’s clauses on eliminating digital discrimination were possibly the most significant federal structure for stopping digital redlining, a task expressly delegated to the Federal Communications Commission. 

In response to the IIJA’s section on digital discrimination, the FCC established the Digital Discrimination Task Force in 2022, but the venture was short-lived and dissolved in 2025 as an instance of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI). The organizational framework, meant to promote fair treatment and participation, came under fire as a discriminatory program in early January. All DEI-related web pages have since been scrubbed from the Commission’s website.

Similar legislative efforts face uncertain futures too.

BEAD is on track to approve proposals and dole out its funding in the coming years. Although structural changes to BEAD have not yet happened, the newly appointed program leader, Arielle Roth, described the previous administration’s preference for fiber internet as part of a “woke social agenda,” echoing other GOP leaders seeking to change the program’s preference for fiber and potentially migrate to a Starlink satellite internet-favored approach instead.

The ACP, which ran out of funds in May 2024, has not been renewed — leaving the 23 million Americans who depended on it without a funding alternative and often resorting to cutting food and health costs from their budgets to afford monthly internet bills. 

The legal battles surrounding equitable internet access have swung back and forth over the years in a similar fashion. But as our world becomes increasingly dependent on the internet, accessibility remains a widespread problem.

What’s the current state of digital redlining?

One-third of Americans have access to only one or no internet provider, and six ISPs cover 98% of the internet market. Like Martinez and her mom, the lack of ISP options means you’re either stuck with whatever speeds you can get and that ISPs can increase your bill after a year — and you can’t do anything about it.

The trade group USTelecom found that broadband prices decreased while the costs of overall consumer goods and services increased since 2015. Even so, the average cost of the internet is still high, especially in more populous states: After initial promotional discounts expire, the average monthly fee is $98, according to US News.

Those expensive costs and the lack of ISP options in low-income areas have created a fragmented landscape of internet connectivity. According to a Pew Research Center study, households with lower incomes are less likely to have an internet subscription than households with higher incomes.

As part of the Digital Equity Act, each state has its own Digital Equity Plan with various strategies and proposals for bridging the broadband divide. Each state has offered slightly different plans, though each emphasizes community-centric solutions. As such, the responses from cities grappling with digital redlining have all been unique.

According to data from Connect Your Community, Detroit and Cleveland were the worst-connected US cities with over 100,000 households in 2023.

Although Detroit and Cleveland have made significant progress in internet connectivity in recent years, gains may stall without continued federal support. Callahan credits that success to the effectiveness of federal programs like the now-ended Emergency Broadband Benefit and the ACP, as well as locally led efforts in the cities. 

“Cleveland has had more people working on this problem in the community for the last 25 years than in almost any city in the country,” Callahan said.

Cleveland helped establish an unlicensed fixed wireless network, the DigitalC, which costs $18 monthly for speeds “guaranteed” at a minimum of 100 megabits per second, the new baseline for broadband that the FCC raised last year from 25Mbps. The DigitalC received $2.76 million as a part of its four-year contract with the city, though the Cleveland City Council expressed concern over DigitalC’s failure to meet its subscriber goal for 2024. 

Following Callahan’s report in 2017, multiple Cleveland residents filed claims of digital redlining by AT&T with the FCC. As of early 2018, those claims were resolved and dismissed. AT&T responded directly to the allegations at the time, stating, “We do not redline,” and highlighted the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts. The telecom outlined to CNET what it’s done in the years since.

“In the Cleveland area, we invested more than $550 million in our network infrastructure from 2019 to 2023 to connect more people to greater possibility,” AT&T said to CNET in a statement.

The statement pointed to AT&T’s partnership with JobsOhio to build out a fiber network through East Cleveland, affecting 14,000 residents and slated to be finished by the end of 2025.

Still, data from Connect Your Community as recent as June 2024 suggests that most nonwhite households in Cleveland rely on asymmetric DSL internet services, which use copper telephone lines for data with speeds averaging lower than 25Mbps. For context, that’s probably not enough speed to stream high-quality video if there’s more than one internet user in the house.

Cleveland Census Tracts by Median Household Income

Source: Connect Your Community. Reprinted with permission.

Cleveland Census Tracts by Percentage of Persons Not “White Alone, Not Hispanic”

Source: Connect Your Community. Reprinted with permission.

Meanwhile, Detroit allocated $45 million toward the broadband divide and appointed a Digital Equity Director to help. Connect 313, launched by the Rocket Community Fund, is a project to establish a network of technology hubs across the city, with free access to the internet, use of computers and other devices, plus digital literacy classes.

Will the strides those cities made continue in light of the now-shuttered ACP and the FCC’s pivot away from Digital Discrimination rules? 

I posed the question to Callahan. 

“I think there’s going to be some retrenchment,” Callahan said, referring to potential cuts in digital equity funding. “I don’t have any proof of that.”

The complications of trying to fix redlining with local, city and state help

Like Martinez, Troy Walcott knows the Bronx, the poorest borough of New York City, has an internet connectivity issue. That’s why he and other Spectrum workers went on strike in 2017 and created an internet co-op.

Walcott is the president of People’s Choice Communications, a worker-owned ISP and internet co-op serving communities in the Bronx and Manhattan.

Even New York City grapples with gaps in internet connectivity. Although the city has made strides to bridge the gap since the pandemic, there’s still a long way to go. 

The city tapped the People’s Choice and a handful of other community-focused ISPs to participate in former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Internet Master Plan.” The plan, announced in early 2020, included a bold initiative to create an open-access fiber internet infrastructure. The city licensed the People’s Choice to wire buildings in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). 

Ultimately, the plan never came to fruition. The city has since quietly killed the “Internet Master Plan” under current mayor Eric Adams. The Big Apple Connect program was launched in its place and offers qualifying NYCHA residents free internet (plus free equipment rental) with speeds up to 300Mbps. According to a spokesperson from New York City’s Office of Technology and Innovation, the program reaches 330,000 New Yorkers — making it the nation’s largest municipal subsidized broadband program.

The People’s Choice Communications was supposed to be one of the Big Apple Connect’s internet providers, but the city passed over them in favor of a three-year contract with region-serving ISPs Optimum and Spectrum and has not yet announced an extension of the program beyond 2027.

“So while programs like Big Apple Connect provide [internet] temporarily for free to NYCHA, what happens when it stops?” Walcott said. “And also, what happens to all the surrounding buildings and the community that are in the same position…but are still unable to access service at those low rates?”

People’s Choice lost most of its subscribers and licensing to wire buildings in NYCHA after being excluded from the Big Apple Connect Program, but Walcott says internet connectivity is still a big problem in the Bronx and that the co-op is shifting to building a fiber internet network to help address it. 

Among the commercial internet providers in the Bronx, Optimum is the biggest, according to the FCC. When reached for comment, the ISP affirmed its “long-standing commitment to providing affordable connectivity to customers across its footprint,”

“We are proud that all households in our footprint have access to 1-gig internet speeds throughout the state of New York,” Optimum said to CNET in a statement. “We also offer affordable high-speed internet options for customers beginning at $14.99.”

Most low-income households in the Bronx still struggle to access high-speed internet despite it being more prevalent than before the pandemic. According to a recent report, the average monthly cost of internet in the borough is $80 for 198Mbps, while the average income in the Bronx is $47,036.

To continue broadband divide efforts, free Wi-Fi hotspots were offered across the city with LinkNYC and NYC Park, though the programs have been criticized as being a faint trace of the city’s previous internet plan as well as a privacy risk. 

Statewide initiatives have somewhat helped. In January, after lengthy legal disputes, New York became the first state to mandate that all internet providers offering home internet plans within the state provide a low-cost option of $15 for 25Mbps monthly (or $20 for 200Mbps). 

Reactions from internet providers have been swift: AT&T pulled its 5G internet service, AT&T Air, from the state entirely, and Starlink quickly filed for an exemption from the law. 

This statewide effort makes up for the loss of widely available assistance like the ACP, but despite the progress made by combined digital equity efforts, the momentum may be lost without continued support. Of the 1 million ACP users in New York City, 25% of those users lived in the Bronx — roughly 45.8% of households in the Bronx.

Broadband adoptions might be more important than access

Digital redlining might seem “solvable” by deploying high-speed internet to neighborhoods previously excluded from the technology. But what happens when some households don’t make the switch? Or if there aren’t laptops or computers in the home?

Adoption rates, or the likelihood of households using the internet options available at their address and sustaining those costs long-term, are equally, if not more important, than accessibility. 

“Digital discrimination is more broad [than digital redlining],” Siefer said. “Beyond the infrastructure, it is the idea that with getting access to the internet and being able to maintain that access, that there are barriers that can surface in different ways.”

According to the latest data from the FCC’s broadband map, 99.98% of households have access to a fixed broadband internet connection at 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up (the FCC’s definition of broadband). This coverage statistic is slightly deceptive, as it includes satellite providers — SpaceX claims to cover 99.98% of US households with its Starlink network of microsatellites, but the largest terrestrial fixed wireless internet provider, T-Mobile, covers just under 60% of homes.

Based on those statistics, you could assume that nearly 100% of households nationwide have access to at least one internet service provider delivering high-speed internet — broadband divide, solved.

However, a closer inspection of the type of internet plans offered throughout the country reveals that although broadband may be widely available for “up to” 100Mbps download, as the new FCC statute requires, only 80% of Americans subscribe to a high-speed internet plan.

While a basic high-speed internet subscription is essential, other factors, like digital literacy and access to devices beyond smartphones, are crucial for sustained internet adoption.

“Many, many low-income households only have a [smart]phone,” said senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff, the American Civil Liberties Union. “And that’s certainly helpful. It’s better than nothing, but it’s really difficult to do your homework on a phone or to work remotely on a phone.”

Data shows that low-income, minority and older communities are more likely to rely on internet access via a phone. 

Additionally, digital literacy is a barrier to consistent internet access: Most Americans don’t understand their internet bills due to price increases, confusing statements, hidden fees and equipment costs. 

In an age where internet use is vital for daily life — from paying bills to determining health — the broadband divide continues to limit lives throughout the country.

Toward an equitable digital landscape

It’s no secret that digital redlining still exists. Current data suggests that even in the most populated cities, like New York City, entire neighborhoods experience drastically different internet service experiences than New Yorkers in higher-income neighborhoods. 

While there have been positive strides in digital equity, the failure of legislation in the wake of the end of the ACP has led to states taking matters into their own hands and implementing low-cost options in New York and California. Los Angeles became the first city to directly ban digital redlining last year, though that precedent was based on the FCC’s Digital Discrimination rules. 

While there is no simple answer for improved internet connectivity, sustainable solutions depend on understanding the nuances between internet access and adoption — and on creating broader federal solutions. 

Additionally, more cities have started turning toward public broadband networks or internet cooperatives, a solution that ensures internet access for everyone. Chattanooga, Tennessee’s municipal-owned fiber network is a popular success story of local internet being regulated as a utility, but hundreds of others exist. 

In places where public broadband networks aren’t an option, community-led efforts or public spaces like Wi-Fi hotspots or libraries are usually the next best bet for getting online if you don’t have high-speed internet at home. 

The broadband divide has proven a long, uphill battle without a universal solution. Over the years, plenty of digital advocates and activists have shown up at the front lines, each committed to bringing internet access to underserved communities or neighborhoods digitally redlined by ISPs. 

“The only way you can have real equity is when the people who are using the system have a say in the quality and the cost of that system,” Walcott said.

One thing remains true, even while we disagree on how to cross the broadband divide: our disjointed, frenetic approach is not working.