But that isn’t all. He also is sandwiched between finding time to help his father, who needs technical assistance occasionally, and assisting his daughter when she is assigned homework on her school laptop but can’t figure out how to navigate the program.
“I would love to see more access, and I would like to have something that is comparable, and something that is not as expensive,” he said.
Martinez is one of about a dozen people who attended a fact-finding meeting last week to help the city complete a digital equity plan. This is the third of fourth meetings, with the final one to be held by Zoom at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 3.
With the help of a $102,000 state grant, a City Council working group on digital equity has been able to team up with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to develop a plan to ensure residents have better access to technology, City Councilor Jose Delgado said.
“We are trying to get feedback and develop a plan, so we can go after federal and state funding that is available right now,” said Delgado, who heads the council’s digital equity group.
The one thing most people agree on is that computer access is needed for work, school and basic needs, such as banking, applying for housing and making appointments, said Eric Weiss, director of economic and municipal collaboration for the commission.
Access to computer technology is becoming as important as basic utilities, such as water and electricity, and many Springfield residents are being left behind, he said.
“Where there is more money, there is more access, and where there is less money, there is less access,” Weiss said.
This is a national truth, and studies show in Springfield alone neighborhoods with a lower median income have less access than those where more residents are middle class.
Cost is probably the main factor, but there are many other issues with a lack of access. Some people have no devices. Some have devices and Internet but need a lot more training on how to use them, he said.
Computers also break, like every other machine, and people need a way to get them repaired, Weiss said.
Resident Stephen Howard said a lot of other communities, states, businesses and other agencies have tapped into available federal and state funds to be used in different ways to close the digital gap. He said the Springfield group should contact those groups and follow their lead.
Most people who attended said their concerns are about having access to an affordable Internet connection.
One resident said she liked the idea of having apartment owners include Internet access as they do with other utilities.
During the pandemic, the Federal Communications Commission created the Affordable Connectivity Program that provided low-cost Internet service to residents and provided public libraries with multiple hot spots that residents with no service could check out with a library card.
“This is where a federal program really worked, and they simply stopped,” Weiss said.
The problem was that Congress stopped funding the program after the pandemic shutdowns ended. That ended subsidies for home Internet connections, and Holyoke Public Library , for example, went from having 40 hotspots to having six, Weiss said.
A number of people also called for bringing in competition as other communities have, either by tapping into services from municipal electricity companies in Westfield and South Hadley, or new private companies.
Currently, Comcast and Xfinity are the only available service providers in Springfield, but it is difficult to bring in another provider without having a sizable amount of money to fund infrastructure improvements.
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