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Cleveland had a connectivity crisis. Detroit too.

When the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered schools in 2020, students were suddenly thrust into a world of online classes at home. That wasn鈥檛 an easy switch, even for affluent students with their own computers and internet service at home. 

But in high-poverty cities like Cleveland and Detroit, it was a full blown crisis with thousands of students lacking computers and any internet access.

Nearly half of families in the two cities had no broadband internet service 鈥�  strong connections to home devices such as computers, not just on mobile phones 鈥� making them the worst-connected cities in the U.S. in one ranking. Other high-poverty cities, including Baltimore, Memphis and Newark, were close behind.

Today, a little more than five years since the pandemic shut schools down, the crisis isn鈥檛 as immediate 鈥� schools are open after all 鈥� but structural issues remain. Connectivity rates have improved nationally from about 71% of homes having broadband service in 2019 to more than 76% in 2023, still far from everyone.

鈥漈he pandemic highlighted for federal and state government that we have an issue,鈥� said Charlotte Bewersdorff, vice president of community engagement of the a partnership between Michigan鈥檚 universities that has worked to improve internet access even before Covid hit. 鈥淎 lot of our work prior to that was trying to convince people that there was an issue. The pandemic made it undeniable.鈥�

Gains were greater in the cities that had the greatest need. Cleveland and Detroit each went from having nearly half of homes without broadband down to a third, according to U.S. Census data.

But now those gains are threatened.  

Most connectivity improvements were made in 2020 and 2021 鈥� at the height of the pandemic 鈥�  but have since stalled. A key federal emergency effort to help families be online by paying part of their monthly bill has ended. Some long-term improvements using Covid relief money are planned but have been slow to start. 

The programs are now in limbo as Congress has changed its focus and President Donald Trump ordered a pause in January on many infrastructure investments, including internet efforts with funding set aside in pandemic relief bills but hadn鈥檛 started work yet. There鈥檚 also which would benefit Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the Starlink satellite company and close advisor of Trump.

 鈥淭he initial agility and efforts to help everybody get connected lost steam as other programs and other problems emerged,鈥� said Johannes Bauer, the chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission in 2023 and 2024. 鈥淭here’s a risk that the gains that were made very early on are actually diminishing over time, and new programs haven’t yet filled that gap.鈥�

Providing internet access for all has long been a goal of digital equity advocates, though it has never been easy to achieve. There鈥檚 an infrastructure challenge: Homes need a service to connect to, which isn鈥檛 always the case. Families need to be able to afford it. They need computers to use it. And they need to know how,

All of these were hurdles when the pandemic hit, particularly for low-income areas.

Schools and nonprofits scrambled to hand out laptops and mobile hotspots. Some parked buses with wifi service in neighborhoods. Learning pods sprouted at churches, community centers or clubs like the Y.M.C.A. or Boys and Girls Clubs, where plexiglass dividers separated properly-spaced desks for students to take classes on just-acquired laptops.Club staff came to work every day while school staff stayed home.

Suddenly, 鈥渄igital equity鈥� was a focus of legislators and the federal government, which soon offered billions in grants to help families pay internet bills and to add fiber optic lines and other internet infrastructure to disconnected areas.

block by block to help target aid. All 50 states created digital equity plans to compete for grants and help connect and educate underserved groups. Many states have also submitted plans and won early approval for plans to connect rural areas.

But there are worries. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), created by Congress during the pandemic, gave a peak of 23 million homes $30 a month to reduce their internet bills, but Congress let the funding expire in 2024. And billions set aside for both rural and urban 

infrastructure and for internet education is also uncertain while the Trump administration picks new leaders to oversee grants and Republicans in Congress seek to change rules guiding them.

Beyond just pausing infrastructure projects overall, Trump鈥檚 orders to half spending on 鈥淒iversity, Equity and Inclusion鈥� in all parts of government threatens efforts to connect and train families under the Digital Equity Act, another pandemic response.

Cleveland and Detroit highlight the mixed impact of the pandemic on connectivity. The two cities remain the worst-connected cities in the U.S., but they have also seen the greatest improvements in connectivity rates the last few years, according to census data

Those cities each slashed the percentage of families with no broadband service in half –  from around 46% in each city in 2019 to about 23% today, according to Connect Your Community and 2023 data from the census. 

鈥淚t has gotten completely better,鈥� said Gloria Jones, director of the Boys and Girls Club near the King Kennedy public housing apartments in Cleveland. The club鈥檚 pandemic learning pod once drew  more than 30 students every day to do online lessons.

 鈥淲hen we first started out, there were kids that didn’t have any access,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat’s why we had to set up. Or their internet was running slow. If you鈥檝e got three kids in the house and y’all are trying to get on the same internet, it slows it down.鈥�

Today, students mostly use the club WiFi only for an online tutoring program the club provides. She said families seem to have found low-cost service, even if not at ideal bandwidth, often from cell phone companies.

The landscape has changed so much in Cleveland that the Cleveland Municipal School District, which had to scramble to buy its 35,000 students laptops and digital hotspots for the 2020-21 school year, has cut its hotspot program way back. The district gave hotspots to 12,000 students 鈥� about a third of the district鈥檚 enrollment 鈥� in 2023, but cut that in half to 6,000 by last spring because students weren鈥檛 using them for months at a time.

鈥淲e turned them off,鈥�  Curtis Timmons, the district鈥檚 Chief Information Officer, said as budget cuts were announced last spring. 鈥淚f you don’t use a hotspot that tells us something – that’s a waste of our money.鈥�

The need for hotspots will reduce further with the district now offering students free internet service from DigitalC, a unique non-profit the district has partnered with since 2020 that aims to provide low-cost broadband using wireless technology. It鈥檚 a plan that has caught the attention of connectivity experts, who could not point to another new, public鈥攑rivate partnership like it.

Using private donations and federal pandemic relief dollars from the city, DigitalC has nearly finished building a network across the city so it can offer 100 mbs service for $18 a month.

The school district, city and county housing authority all allowed the company to put transmission towers on school buildings to keep costs down. About 1,300 families with students in the district now use it for free internet.

Nichelle Montoney, guardian of two boys, 13 and 10, in the Cleveland school district said free service from DigitalC makes a big difference for her. She kept her internet service after ACP ended, but her $50 monthly bill from the cable company was hard to pay.

鈥淚 didn’t have a choice,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat bill barely got paid鈥�when you have to choose between paying the gas bill and the light bill. You pay just under the minimum requirement to put it towards the cable bill, so you can try to get just another 30 days and hope that it stays on. It was a struggle.鈥�

Other residents are still slow to sign on. The service has about 3,600 subscribers, out of about 90,000 households in its service area. DigitalC still aims to eventually have 22,500 homes subscribed, nearly half of those without internet service now.

Detroit also had major efforts to connect people. A partnership with the city, United Way and the Rocket Mortgage company, which is based in Detroit, rallied as 鈥淐onnect 313鈥� 鈥� named after the city鈥檚 area code 鈥� to provide training and low cost laptops and hotspots to people. The city also used pandemic relief money to 鈥� in libraries, community centers and non-profits around the city that remain open today for residents to access the internet.

It is also trying to add fiber optic cable to one neighborhood to improve connectivity there as a pilot project, but the .

And it boosted its connectivity numbers with a major drive with television and radio commercials in late 2023 to sign up more residents for ACP internet benefits. , but many more eligible families never took advantage.

鈥淚t was kind of like a last chance effort to show them (federal officials) this is a really big need, in the community,鈥� said Jenninfer Onwenu, a senior advisor in Detroit鈥檚 Digital Equity and Inclusion office. 鈥淭his is something that people were not aware of that they could be benefiting from. Imagine how many lives we could change by keeping this program in place. Unfortunately, that did not work out.鈥�

Republicans opposed extending ACP as a 鈥渨asteful鈥� part of a Democratic 鈥渟pending spree鈥�  because it was costing billions and some estimates showed that only about 20 percent of recipients added internet service because of ACP,while most just enjoyed a discount on service they already paid for.

Digital equity advocates worry, though, that new census data available this fall will show that families had to drop their service without ACP鈥檚 help. Some loss is likely, with major communications companies reporting subscriber losses last year they attribute to ACP鈥檚 end. Comcast, the nation’s largest internet provider, reported losing 87,000 subscribers in one quarter last year mainly because ACP expired.

John Horrigan of the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, a Chicago-area non-profit, and that ACP bill reductions kept 8.8 percent of households nationally online.

鈥淭he digital divide is not about being 鈥榦n鈥� or 鈥榦ff鈥� the network,鈥� Horrigan said. That framing makes it seem as if once a household is on, it has permanently hurdled the barrier that separates disconnection from connection…There is more uncertainty and churn in broadband at the low-income end of the market than some may appreciate.鈥�

At-risk families like these are who DigitalC in Cleveland is hoping to connect, though Detroit and other cities don鈥檛 have a similar backstop.

“Their safety net is being cut,鈥� said DigitalC CEO Joshua Edmonds. 鈥淚n the absence of that funding, locally, we have an answer.鈥�

Republicans in Congress are also opposing grants to states and communities under the pandemic-passed Digital Equity Act and the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) for their focus on serving ethnic and racial minorities, both in who the projects will serve and who is hired to work on them. Such a race-based program is unconstitutional, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has charged.

U.S. House members have also raised concerns about the BEAD infrastructure program, which has states with plans ready to begin, but are now on hold. A House subcommittee blasted that program in a

鈥漈he Biden-Harris Administration saddled the BEAD program with regulations unrelated to broadband to appease left-wing interest groups,鈥� said Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican, the sub committee’s chairman. 鈥淭hese included technology preferences, burdensome labor rules, and climate change requirements, to name a few. 

He and others want to ditch BEAD鈥檚 old preference for fiber optic lines for a 鈥渢echnology-neutral鈥� approach that would allow the allotted $42 billion to also cover satellite projects.

Democrat Doris Matui of California immediately objected to what she called 鈥渟abotage鈥� of projects ready to begin.

鈥淩epublicans claim they’re just being technology neutral,鈥� the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee said. 鈥淏ut can we trust this when the Trump administration has given Elon Musk nearly unfettered authority to further his business interests by taking over government contracts and dismantling agencies regulating his companies?鈥�

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