Communities throughout the Cleveland metropolitan area have for decades been severely splintered between neighborhoods where residents have access to efficient, lower-cost digital communications and those neighborhoods whose residents do not have such access.

In recent years, this contrast has become even starker.

Several digital communications experts, speaking at a recent presentation regarding digital equity in high-speed communication access, discussed the intractable dynamic of residents in poor neighborhoods having to pay far more to get the same level of cable and cell-phone service as those in more affluent areas.

The same redlining that we saw with home mortgages is the same redlining that we’re seeing with digital connections. It’s the same neighborhoods.  — Joshua Edmonds, chief executive officer of Digital C

“The same redlining that we saw with home mortgages is the same redlining that were seeing with digital connections. It’s the same neighborhoods,” explained Joshua Edmonds, chief executive officer of Digital C, a Cleveland-based nonprofit focused on securing equitable access to digital services.

Digital C hosted a presentation at MidTown Tech Hive in late February. The discussion mainly focused on the history of redlining in Cleveland, and current efforts to encourage digital equity for all residents.

Digital C has indicated that, among cities with 100,000 or more households, Cleveland has the second highest percentage of households with no broadband access of any kind (only Miami is worse). Digital C indicated that, according to the 2021 American Community Survey 1-year estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau, as many as 17 percent of Cleveland households did not have broadband of any kind for cell phones, or wireless devices.

Digital C said the Census Bureau survey also indicated that more than one-third (35%) of Cleveland households also have no cable, fiber optic or digital subscriber line (DSL) subscription. This number also places Cleveland in the second highest percentage of households in this category (only Memphis is worse).

Most residents living in poorly-serviced areas — concentrated largely on the east side of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County — generally experience much slower Internet speeds and less reliable reception than residents living in middle-income neighborhoods and suburban areas.

Because of the inaccessibility of reliable cable service in poorer neighborhoods, residents in those areas often are forced to pay additional “premium” service from for-profit digital carriers just to gain access to consistent broadband offerings.

“People (in lower income areas) are held hostage to a cable company that charges $85 a month…This is an affordability question,” said Bill Callahan, director of Connect Your Community, a non-profit which also focuses on the causes and policy solutions needed to address barriers to accessible digital services.

Digital equity advocates hope for up to $20 million in ARPA funding to be earmarked specifically for broadband expansion in Cleveland neighborhoods.

Callahan mainly attributed the current lack of equitable digital access in the Cleveland area to a series of business decisions made by AT&T — the traditional 20^th century acronym for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company — since the early 2000s.

He said the cable companies convinced Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature to take away the ability of city councils to approve and control cable franchises, which previously allowed local politicians the power to demand that cable companies provide more equitable access to high-speed internet service. The result is AT&T and others were able to “cherry-pick” the neighborhoods that got access to lower-cost, high-speed service.

Callahan said that several comparable, out-of-state cities  — like Pittsburgh — do not face the same challenges.

“This wasn’t done by accident,” Callahan said, noting that discrimination against poorer neighborhoods may not have been the prime reason for their actions. “But they definitely knew what they were doing.”

Both Callahan and Digital C’s Edmond expressed hopes for up to $20 million of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) earmarked specifically for broadband expansion in Cleveland neighborhoods.

In June 2022, the city extended a request for proposals (RFP) asking communications companies to submit ideas to implement broadband expansion. At that time, the city said it expected to choose a vendor and finalize a contract by September 2022. However, as of late February, the city has yet to complete a contract, although negotiations continue.

“It’s (the appropriation) not nothing,” Callahan said. He said ATT and other communications companies operating in the city “are salivating over the possibility of getting that funding.”

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