Today I’m touting a documentary created by WRAL TV from Raleigh, North Carolina. The documentary is called Disconnected and looks at the plight of those living without home broadband. I have to disclose that I have a role in the documentary as the industry talking head that comments on the various topics.
The documentary shows what it’s like to not have broadband at home. The majority of Americans have good broadband and many of them have no idea that just a few miles outside their towns and cities that people struggle from having poor broadband or no broadband. Homes without broadband struggle with things that most people take for granted – kids doing homework online, connecting to a doctor’s website, working from home. Communities without broadband struggle because they are losing businesses that need broadband and they can’t attract new businesses.
The documentary was created before the coronavirus pandemic which has heightened the need for home broadband. How can we send students and workers home and then expect them to function in homes that don’t have broadband?
Below is the advertisement for the documentary. It will also be available starting this evening on the WRAL website. If you’re in North Carolina, note that the documentary actually airs at 7:30 tonight.
The primary purpose of this documentary is to inform the public that a lot of the people in North Carolina don’t have home broadband. But this is not North Carolina specific because this same documentary could be made about every rural county in America that doesn’t have a broadband solution. As somebody who constantly works to improve rural broadband, I am still surprised when I talk to urban folks who have no idea that many homes don’t have broadband. Hopefully, this documentary will open a few such eyes – because we need everybody’s support to find solutions to close the rural broadband gap.
