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Even with the huge amount of funding coming in to expand broadband, Jordana Barton-Garcia says impoverished regions like tribal lands, the Mississippi Delta, the border region of Texas and central Appalachia could still be left on the wrong side of the digital divide if policymakers and ISPs don’t focus on digital equity.
Guest Speaker
Jordana Barton-GarciaShow Notes
Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Intro: Rural Broadband Today is a production of Pioneer Utility Resources. Broadband – we need it for work and for school, for our health and our economy. What’s being done to bring broadband internet access within reach of every American? Let’s talk about it now on Rural Broadband Today.
Andy Johns: Thank you for listening to Rural Broadband Today where we take a look at the issues and the people shaping the rural broadband story across America. I’m your host, Andy Johns, and this program is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources. Please share this episode with your network and help us tell the rural broadband story. I’m delighted to be joined on this episode by Jordana Barton-Garcia. Jordana, thanks for joining me.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Thank you, Andy. It’s wonderful to be here.
Andy Johns: Great. Now, we’re going to talk quite a bit about digital equity. We’re going to talk about the digital economy, or lack thereof, in places like South Texas and the Mississippi Delta. But first, I wanted to get into a little bit about Jordana. Jordana serves as the senior fellow with Connect Humanity and the principal at Barton-Garcia Advisors. Her resume includes roles as senior advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and vice president of Community Investments at Methodist Health Care Ministries. So very, very impressive resume, and you’re doing great work at every stop along the way it seems like. Jordana, most of your stops at some way or another, involve some form of focusing on equity for rural areas and particularly digital equity. So let’s kind of start with that word. How do you define digital equity? What does that mean, and why is it something that you’ve committed a lot of time in your life to working towards?
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Yeah, well, equity is about fairness. It’s about giving, providing opportunity more broadly in our society. And I come from a rural South Texas, colonia Benavides, close to the border in Laredo. And so it’s just part of what I believe, right? I grew up in a school system that didn’t have very high expectations of the children. And indeed, didn’t have kind of the rigorous coursework of other schools. So I always had that sense of fairness and equity kind of ingrained in me and the desire, right, to help rural areas, low income communities, to be able to have opportunities and a more equitable – we’ll never get to perfect equity, but to a more equitable, opportunities in their life.
Andy Johns: Definitely. And I think that’s what’s a little bit different about this episode, is most of the episodes that we record on Rural Broadband Today, we’re talking about how fast broadband can be expanded and how quickly different states and different organizations are taking steps to grow it. But in this episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about the areas that have been left behind traditionally, and without folks paying attention going forward, run the risk of being left behind again. One of the stats that I had seen on your website is that even with all of the money coming in for federal broadband funding that’s going through the states and all the different programs going on right now, you’re thinking it’s still – you and your your group are thinking there’s still – about 30% of the folks who lack Internet access today may still be missing out even after this money is used up. Am I reading that right?
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Yeah. The head of Connect Humanity is citing one of the statements from NTIA who said that even with the billions of dollars of current funding under IIJA and other programs, they’re still not going to be able to cover 30% of people who are not connected today. And so we are looking at Connect Humanity and, my work in general is how do we have long term solutions, right? Not short term fixes, but long term solutions where we really invest in communities. And that’s why digital equity is so important. So digital equity is the condition in which all individuals and communities have information technology needed for full participation in our society, our democracy, and as you said, the digital economy, whether we like it or not or know it or not, we are deep into the digital economy. The fourth industrial revolution, people kind of consider about 2018 the transition. And then, of course, COVID pushed us ten years into the digital economy, right, in people needing to adapt in all the ways that we did with remote learning and telehealth and so forth. There was something like, I just quoted it in an article that I wrote, 38% increase in telehealth in the during the pandemic. And so we are deep into the digital economy, so to have the ability to participate in the economy, and, from the basics, access and skills that you need to be able to climb up the ladder and economic opportunities is all dependent on digital equity and having the digital background and skills and access that affluent places have.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: And the reason we talk about equity rather than equality, right? It’s about fairness. It’s about we have systemic issues that prevents some people from being connected, right, from having a high speed Internet service at affordable prices. And the knowledge and skills, as you said, and the tools to use the Internet and the digital skills broadly. So the stakes are so high right now, right, because you need it for every area of of life. From having an equitable opportunities in education, job opportunities, the ability to move up in one’s job, access to financial services and to be able to start a business. We know, if we didn’t know before, we know from the pandemic, that as a business you had to be able to be online and be able to transition to e-commerce. And, of course, many businesses now are based on IP protocol. We have a very huge transformation in business. And then, of course, manufacturing is more and more automated, right? So it requires more and more digital skills. And like I said, retail, has transitioned to e-commerce. And so the big creators of jobs in our economy, it’s all changed. It used to be retail and manufacturing.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: That’s how people could enter the middle class. And then their kids would go to college, and you’d have that upward mobility, opportunity for upward mobility. But all of that has changed in the job market. And now health care is the biggest creator of jobs in our economy. And think about it. At the same time that we have closure of rural hospitals, and you mentioned South Texas, which is where I’m from and where I do a lot of work is, and we have one of the greatest digital divides in the country. We have the highest cost of health care. We have the worst health outcomes. And along the Texas-Mexico border, it’s a persistent poverty region. We have a dearth of providers, right, like specialists and primary care physicians and physician assistants and mental health providers. And those are all areas that telehealth has been proven to be very effective at, right? So just for the productivity of that industry, that’s now the biggest creator of jobs in our economy, we need to have broadband connectivity for people, right? Because telehealth is not just connecting hospital systems and clinics. It’s connecting the very people that they’re trying to reach. For what the FCC calls connected care. So for all the things that that we need it for. And so the promise of telehealth_
Andy Johns: I think that’s a point. Let me just kind of underscore that point that you were making before you continue that I think it’s important for folks to realize that what you said, the cost of of delivering health care is the highest in some of these areas with the worst health outcomes. So clearly, the people who need it the most, but those are some of the folks also having the toughest time getting access to telehealth. The people that could benefit the most from telehealth are some of the ones having the most trouble getting access to it. I just wanted to underscore that point.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: That is so true, right? It’s a double trouble, and a deficit for our economy, for our people. Because we care, right, about the health of the people. But also it matters how healthy they are to the economy, plus the productivity of the industry that is the biggest creator of jobs. And in fact, on the border, the Federal Reserve has shown in its Heart of Texas Report that health care is one of the top two industries right on the border region. So it’s important for people in the quality of life and access to care in rural areas is critical, right, because of the closure of rural hospitals and the need to kind of rethink how we provide rural care. We have new models coming up where you can have a clinic where people go, but the specialist or could come in through video conferencing right. Where you generally you have a primary care or you have a mid-level provider at least right there, or in some cases a social worker if it’s for mental and behavioral health. But you have somebody there at the site, and and then you can videoconference and other methods of telehealth. So that’s what we’re needing to do, right? Reinvent and rethink the way we provide care, and it’s vital to the vibrancy of rural communities. We have this gorgeous, amazing landscape in this country. And this rich human capital in rural areas and, underserved areas.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Some of the most amazing innovations come from those areas like on the border and affordable housing in different areas. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? But what we’re losing, we’re not investing properly in that, and we’re not taking full advantage of all of that human capital. And that’s what broadband offers, right, is that you can work from rural areas and maybe have a job in a city, and you can build businesses in rural areas because geography is not as necessary anymore for reaching a customer base when you have broadband and the Internet. So you create many more opportunities. You want to create as many opportunities for entry into the middle class and beyond as you can. And that’s what we have failed to do. That’s why we have these extremes in income and wealth inequality in our country and this job polarization. And so and we know from all the statistics that this was before the the pandemic, 85% of middle skills jobs, those not requiring a college degree, but offering opportunity for upward mobility. You know, 85% of those jobs require digital skills. And we know from studies that, for example, children are more likely, if they have high speed Internet at home, they’re more likely to do well in school, to go to STEM careers and all of that. So that’s why it’s so important and vital to people and to our economy, the health of our economy and our middle class.
Andy Johns: Yeah. Now, you used a term there that I was not familiar with. I think you kind of unpacked it a little bit there. But “job polarization.” So explain what you mean when you talk about “job polarization.” That has to do with the income inequality you were talking about?
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Yeah. Yeah. So, and I’m kind of not looking at the details around that, but the growth, the share of the income, now is going to the very, very top of our job, labor market. And when you have a shrinking middle class – and PEW just last year released kind of the latest data where our middle class is is clearly shrinking. So that has a lot to do with jobs, right? So now there are low level jobs, right? And then there are a lot of high level jobs. But the middle jobs, those are all changing. So we’re not preparing people well. So you have that mismatch. And that leads to income and wealth inequality.
Andy Johns: Got it. Now, a couple of other things to unpack. When I looked at the Connect Humanity page, it says that your work helps organizations and communities achieve full participation in the digital economy. And I like that phrasing. What does that look like? What does it look like when a community achieves full participation in the digital economy?
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Well, I think that creates – I’ll say the first part of it, right, and that is in order to attract industry and jobs to region. Now one of the main things they’re looking for is high speed internet, right? And you can see it in the huge companies like Amazon, right? They state it right out. For them to come to a city, they have to have a high speed Internet, people with digital skills, they have their list, right? And likewise, in any business now. And I had to learn that the hard way. I was a community development banker in a big part of my career, trying to invest in low income areas and work with community-based organizations to do so. And we wanted to attract industry to the border region to create jobs and vibrant economy. And what I didn’t realize is that without broadband infrastructure, we would never be able to do that. We have old legacy copper infrastructure we have – and people may be still able and the old legacy cable systems, a network design that might provide DSL in 25/3, but they’re not sufficient for businesses and certainly not for homes or residents either now. But there’s an underinvestment in the fiber-based infrastructure that is needed for industry and commerce. And indeed, so there’s that. The ability to attract jobs. And not only that, in rural South Texas, we always talk about the brain drain. In order for our kids to make a life, go to school, make a life, they have to go away. And sometimes they stay away their whole life. Like I interviewed a young woman from a colonia in Las Milpas in South Texas, which is now part of Pharr, Texas. And she went to community college, got her engineering degree, and then she went to Stanford, and she got a scholarship to go to Stanford. She got engineering and design. And she started a telehealth company in Silicon Valley and very successful. She got in the 30 under 30 of Forbes and all kinds of really great distinctions and is doing great. She could have had that business in South Texas, but there’s not the infrastructure there to support it, right? I mean, I’m not saying what she would have done, but we need young people growing up there, don’t even have that option to build their business in that region. We’re trying to change all of that, of course. And in fact, Pharr, where she is from, is now a broadband provider and partnering with incredible co-ops in others to serve everybody in the region, including Las Milpas.
Andy Johns: Outstanding. Let me ask you a question that we definitely could jump off the deep end and spend three or four hours unpacking. But when we’re talking about the areas that, as you said, are underfunded when it comes to infrastructure, the places that have some of the same challenges, whether it’s health outcomes, educational opportunities, the ability to start a business. A lot of the, when we look at the country, a lot of the places, the same places keep coming up, whether it’s whatever the stats are, obviously it’s all connected. But you talk about the South Texas area, you’ve talked about the Rio Grande Valley, the Mississippi Delta, the mountains of East Kentucky, some of the tribal areas out in Arizona and New Mexico. It’s a lot of the same places that keep coming up on those lists. And, not to paint with too broad of a brush, but are there some things that you have seen? I know you’ve done some work in the Mississippi Delta as well. Are there some common threads or are each of those areas kind of facing completely their own challenges, or are there some similarities, reasons why each of those areas always winds up on the same list? And we work with some folks in East Kentucky that are doing great work to bring networks, broadband networks to that area. Same with New Mexico and everywhere else. I’m not not trying to pick on those areas, but you see them come up a lot. And I’m wondering if in your work, you’ve found some things that, the reasons why that underinvestment has happened and could continue unless more folks listen to what you’re saying.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Yeah. No, I do see a lot of similarities. And in fact, throughout my career in the field of community development in general, I’ve worked in these areas. And what you did was, you listed the four persistent poverty regions of our country, right? That is places where 20% or more of the population has been under the poverty line for the last three decades. So you said it right, Central Appalachia, Mississippi Delta, Texas-Mexico border and tribal lands. And because the digital divide impacts low income people, and that’s where we get to the equity part of what we’re talking about, which is we have systemic barriers to everybody having access to broadband. And that is that in our country, the way policy has been made in general is that if the companies will go first, especially the big national telecom providers. They’ll go where they can maximize profits. They have to answer to their shareholders, and that is their fiduciary duty. So they’re going to go to the affluent neighborhoods. So low income people are disproportionately on the wrong side of the digital divide of people of color, because there’s a link between income and wealth and BIPOC or communities of color. And historical laws and policies that have created persistent poverty which we might not have time to go into now.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: But it’s really systemically the way we’ve made policy and law has created that situation. Because, Internet is not regulated. It’s not a regulated industry, so companies tend to go where they can make the maximum profit. Now we have the legacy telephone co-ops and the electric co-ops that are now providing, many of them, now providing Internet and small ISP’s and regional ISP’s – very different for them. I’ve interviewed a lot of them and and seeing the work, the impact of their work. They have a different bottom line. They’re trying to have a more reasonable rate of return on investment, and they’re part of their communities. So actually Christopher Ali the writer who writes about this subject in Farm Fresh Broadband.
Andy Johns: That’s it.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: And so he talks about this, and this is one of my primary training in community development is that as you invest in the local communities. So not only is it important to have high speed broadband, but think about the digital economy, right? We want a diversity of companies and communities to own the infrastructure, to own the assets of the digital economy because that also is what creates wealth and assets in communities. And we have those because of our awesome history of electrification of our country and telephone, getting telephone to all where it was regulated, right?
Jordana Barton-Garcia: So everybody had to be covered. So they know how to cover these places. They have access to the rights of way. They have a lot of the assets, and now we just need to expand that and invest in those rural companies. Because their primary goal is not to necessarily to maximize profits; they’re going to do well and do good, right? And they’re part of their communities. That’s what I have found. They’re motivated by different things, and they want people connected. And that’s why we’re seeing; they’re providing fiber-based networks. And, you know, when Christopher Ali talks about the politics of good enough. And so that’s a very important concept because, and I’ve been told directly to my face in a congressional hearing. “Hey, y’all might not get fiber, but, you’ll get something, and you should be happy with that,” basically, right? That’s the message. Well, actually, we have companies that know how to serve and know how to bring – What you should be shooting for is the best possible for rural areas and low income. They don’t need less than others, and we want to be reasonable. Because of geography, all the things you have to consider.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: But guess what? We know how to do it. And guess what? We have community development in this country, too. So it’s not just federal grants, but we have the Community Reinvestment Act, which is about attracting investment into low income and underserved rural areas and communities. And together we have all the tools we need to finance broadband networks and bring what people need and no less than what they need. And so this the shooting for the minimum is a little disturbing, right, because it’s kind of saying the politics of good enough. Well, actually, it’s not good enough because guess what? The world is moving so fast. And if we don’t invest now in the kind of networks that people actually need, we’re just going to be creating the next digital divide. And guess what? This concept of 5G, the actual standard 5G, that creates the Internet of Things, that makes that possible. And we talk about smart cities, smart rural and precision farming and all of that. That all is going to depend on equity at the very base of, did we invest properly in the infrastructure that we need – actually need – in this country for that? So then big data, and then artificial intelligence, all of that is built on each other, right? 5G is going to create, even expand big data even more.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: And all of that matters in the economy and in equity in the economy. So if we don’t get it right, right about now, then it’s going to be it’s going to be harder and harder. We’re not going to have equity in artificial intelligence and the other areas. And we know when people are included and people have digital skills, when we look at this very holistically and create programs that do that, then we have people that can be at the table and make decisions that we’re going to be having – the digital divide is just the first, ethical or not, maybe not the first, but it’s one of the first ethical issues of technology, technological advancement. And if we can get this right and deal with the complexities of where we are in this country on this issue, then we can also have conversations because more people will be at the table. Rural areas, people of color will be at the table making algorithms. Are they fair? Should we use them until they are fair?It’s all based on – we talk about algorithmic bias. So it’s all about having people from diverse backgrounds at the table to be able to create the knowledge and the assets of the digital economy and to make those policy decisions.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: So, yeah, so when we’re creating like I’m working on the regional plan for South Texas and going to be working with Mississippi Delta as well, and we’re building in the, the digital equity programs that are part of IIJA and working with the local ISP’s, the co-ops and others they want to serve as apprenticeships and internships, paid internships, to build the networks, to run the help desk and get IT training and certification. We’re also including law and policy, right? So these young people from rural areas or underserved areas, they’re going to be the policy makers. They’re going to need to understand, so I created a whole curriculum to help young people know how we got here. There’s so many terms, like access and technology neutral and things like that get into policy, but when you really analyze them, oh, that might not be a good policy. It might be a thinking too small or scarcity minded, right? So how do we have young people really understand from all the major laws that have impacted, and of course, we’re still in the laws created during the telephone era pretty much. So we need to catch up. Yeah.
Andy Johns: Yeah. Well, you mentioned several other the things there, and there was so much, so much good stuff in what you just just shared. I was actually looking, I believe we had interviewed Christopher Ali in one of our earlier episodes. We’ll try to put the notes to that in the show notes of this episode. There’s so much good stuff, and you got into where I was headed next, which is we know the problem. Folks like yourself are doing a great job of highlighting the problems there. And I think folks are starting to catch on, starting to get it. What has to happen next? And you talked there about kind of training that next generation. You talked about raising awareness. You’ve talked about the policy makers not shooting. I like the way you said it, shooting for the minimum, aiming the goals higher. There’s also some funding mechanisms that I know that you’re working with as well. What are some of the things that as we’re going forward to get this right, that from where you’re sitting, we need to make sure happen?
Jordana Barton-Garcia: So, there are going to be some major challenges like with IIJA, the FCC maps came out. And according to the maps, if you said they’re purported to be able to tell us about the digital divide. You would think you would see that all of South Texas is completely 100% covered, and Texas is almost 98% covered. And so that kind of flawed information is one of the challenges, right? So how does the poverty region if the Mississippi Delta and the border region, for example, which I’ve looked at all the data there, is completely covered or has access to the Internet and is considered served, then they might not be able to get the funding because the funding is determined, first goes to the unserved, and then to the underserved and so forth. So and the problem is that the purpose of the FCC maps is to show, quote, “access.” And when I, lay people or, others think about access, they think, “Oh, that you have it.” Not that you can be served, but that you are served. And so it’s not about broadband subscriptions. How many in that community have broadband subscriptions and actually have service, and what kind of service. But it’s just that they can be served within ten days. And that was the problem with the FCC 477 data.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Right? So I always had to use the US Census American Community Survey. So robust. And you could see how many people had subscriptions, actually had fixed Internet in the home, and all the reasons why that’s important if you’re talking about the digital divide. Now, the FCC and other entities might need the information that they produce, but it just doesn’t tell you about the digital divide in Mississippi Delta, in the Texas-Mexico border region. We’ve already documented, Microsoft showed by, and I’m a researcher, right? I was a researcher with the Federal Reserve, and I have that background. And you have to triangulate when you’re doing research. You have to use research from different sources, and then to try to tell the complex picture. But if you just tell a piece of the picture, like you have a whole elephant, and you’re just describing the tail. Well, the FCC current maps describe the tail of the elephant. And this says nothing about whether people actually have it, what it would cost for that particular person to get it; the line extension or the the cost of service, and the US has some of the highest cost of service. And Thomas Philippon, really, the economist, has a publication that really demonstrates how we don’t have competition. So you end up with for the US we have some of the highest cost, almost double the other developed countries, like Germany.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: And so we’re dealing with a complex problem, right? Maps that are supposed to determine billions of dollars. Yet that show that, at least two that I’ve looked at, two persistent poverty regions are completely served. And we know that that’s not true from our best scholars and the best research of the Federal Reserve and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and Jon Sallet that did some very important work with the Benton Foundation. So we’re having to suspend what we know and make sense of these maps. And it’s too much pressure on lay people to understand what that means, that access and being served does not mean the same thing to the industry or the FCC as it does to regular people. Regular people just want to know, can I get great service that I need for school, for all the things I need to do? So even UTRGV they did a study, the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. Finally we have a medical school too on the border, and they surveyed their students during the pandemic because they want to see how well they were going to be able to transition to remote learning, and 45% of those students didn’t have an Internet connection at home.
Andy Johns: Wow.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: That’s just, we have many surveys now. I’ve been working with some of these communities on the border. They have community surveys. They have actual evidence, right? Actual, yet these FCC maps, totally out of context. Totally. And I would propose a different title for the FCC maps.We can’t pretend that they talk about digital divide because they’re talking about something else. It’s ISP. I gave it a new name. Incumbent ISP Reports on Minimum Speed and Infrastructure Availability, Regardless of Type of Infrastructure, Quality of Connection, Actual Subscriptions or Cost of Service. And you know, how –
Andy Johns: That’s going to be quite an acronym there.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Nobody will title it that, right? But that is the accurate title. But it’s going to be deciding billions of dollars. And persistent poverty regions are, Congress said, make sure you you serve in this IIJA persistent poverty regions and colonias, like of South Texas, are also designated places, so we’re going to have to have another strategy. And Congress also said that the FCC would create the maps that would determine funding. So there’s a contradiction there. So those are some of the complexities that we have to deal with as a society and come to, so at the same time that I get kind of frustrated because I’m like, “Okay, why don’t we just tell people what this really says, what this really is?” Well, we are actually. We’re all working together, and now elected officials from small towns and are having to understand what these terms mean, and they’re going to be able to make better policy decisions. So we’re having one of the biggest civic participation exercises in our country that is focusing on rural and underserved places, at least in what we know we need to be serving right to create more equity. Yet it’s not easy, right, because there’s a lot of teaching and a lot of powerful structures in place that make it hard for it to be easy.
Andy Johns: Yeah, and that’s a really important perspective, and I really am glad that you framed it that way. I like that a lot. Two final questions for you. One of the things that I’ve heard a little bit of concern from folks about, and we’ve seen it on the state level, I know we saw it here in Tennessee on the state level a little bit a few years ago, is that there’s, at times, there’s an attitude that, you know, here’s rural broadband advocates. Here is money that we’re throwing at that problem, and then it should be done, right? I know in Tennessee, the first round of broadband grants was $10 million, and there was kind of the attitude for at least a little while, like the state legislature, like, okay, we did that. We did rural broadband. Now, let’s move on to the next thing. It’s like, no, $10 million is not enough to do it. There’s still a lot of people without. Are you concerned at all that after this big wave of of federal funding comes through, and we’ve got the BEAD grants coming out later this year, it’s going to be tougher for whether it is 30% or whatever, the folks who are, who may be left behind, even after this wave, it’s going to be even tougher to find the funding sources. Or do you think that’s a faucet that is open and is going to continue to continue to pour for a little while?
Jordana Barton-Garcia: So I do. Everything about the way the rules have been written and the amount, the rules about who is going to get the funding. And what we’ve seen so far about who is being awarded the grants, which, many have gone to big telecom industry. And they have, some of them like in the – I don’t know if you follow the East Carroll, Louisiana kind of story and Connect Humanity worked with East Carroll, where the big cable company protested their grant to work with another Internet builder to bring connectivity to that region because they weren’t served. They had surveys. And then an email that he sent accidentally got out, so the news covered them saying that one of their biggest challenges and efforts is going to be in protesting any kind of grants that might go to smaller providers or our local communities or smaller providers or any other, any competition that they’re –
Andy Johns: Have to play defense.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Yeah, defense. So it’s not looking good, and then you see the maps, right, that came out, and then people were given 35 days to challenge, the official challenge, with three national holidays in between. I mean, it’s almost absurd if you really think about it. It’s really, are we supposed to just jump and jump and jump and, you know? Well, those things don’t look good, right? And then this scarcity mindset, where they’re talking about minimums, when rural co-ops, regional ISPs and certainly municipal ISP’s, and we have a few, are proving that they’re building fiber networks. They know how to do it. They know how to make it work. They have been doing that. They just need support. Right? And they’re, some of them are people of color, locally-owned, and other. And then the way we’re also not supporting entrepreneurship in ISPs, with this new funding because newer companies aren’t the ones that they’re shooting for to give the grants to. We’re losing out, right, and an opportunity to really serve at the speeds and capacity that communities need. And what you want to shoot for, like I said before, is the best you can. Right now, we need to shoot for not minimums, but for the best that we can.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Right? Where are the companies? So if, and then the rule that says no overbuilding. Well, that’s a best practice. It makes sense to people. It seems fair. You don’t want to build a fiber network over a fiber network. But guess what? You do want to build a fiber network over a copper or legacy cable network. However, a company can protest and say, “No, you can’t, you can’t do that.” And this concept of technology neutral, which is not true. Technology is not neutral, right? And when we say fiber-based networks, it can be fiber to the home, certainly. And some rural co-ops are just doing that because they know it’s the right thing to do, and they know how to do it. But even, fiber wireless is 99% wired. So if you have fiber as close as possible, say, geography doesn’t allow you, then the fixed Internet, the fixed wireless, is going to be much more effective, reliable and speed and capacity. And so that’s what these terms are terms of the industry, right? Like no overbuilding, just means no competition. It sounds so fair and right and technology neutral. That sounds very fair, as well. Because, hey, you should be able to build what you can, and what you know. Oh, no, no, no. But it’s the way we discriminate against communities by not investing in high speed broadband in those communities or in the upgrades that are necessary.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: That’s how we got to the digital divide. So if we’re building that into our policy and not employing best practices in community development and the broadband industry. And we’re putting into law and policy things that we know are discriminatory or deficit thinking or scarcity thinking, then we’re limiting our possibilities. So, yes, I see a big danger. Now, you have people like Christopher Ali, Jon Sallet, who wrote for the Benton Foundation – goodness, I can’t even put my self in their company – but myself, you know, I’m not giving up, and others. Who are trying to write about these issues, teach constantly and bring these ideas to people’s attention. Because otherwise, we will shoot ourselves in the foot and we’re not going to get the impact. And also the way we make policy, we tend to make it in very, very, again, scarcity kind of thinking where you think that’s – like what we can do in community development say, with a $5 million federal grant, you can leverage that and create 25 million with the tools we have in community developments to finance broadband networks. And back in 2016, I worked with the interagency group that regulates banks under the CRA to include broadband and digital inclusion as part of CRA.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: So it’s an area, we have new market tax credits. We have a different kinds of business loans, very low interest patient capital. We have supporting digital workforce development, all of that we built into the law of the Community Reinvestment Act. So we have more tools than we’re pretending we have at this point. And we need to think much bigger about what rural people and low income people can have. And if we really, if we truly understood the human capital that we’re underinvesting in and that we’re not unleashing their brilliance in the world, then we wouldn’t do this. Nobody. I don’t care what party, you would not do that. We need to unleash all of our great resources in people and ideas and entrepreneurial ideas into our economy and into the world to create solutions to some of our greatest problems. An I do, long story short, I think it is a danger. But you have very committed people. You have amazing local regional ISP’s, co-ops. We have this whole history in our country and people who are so committed and they’re many of them social enterprises. They’re doing well and doing good, and I think we have that model too, very strongly in our country.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: We have nonprofits that work with banks and others to bring investment into low income communities. We have a whole toolbox. But if you don’t embed that into the way a program is implemented – like you could give extra points for somebody who brings in 10 million with your 10 million, the federal grant of 10 million. And really value that. Because that’s the truth of our economy. The way we get to equity in a capitalist society is you build in these mechanisms to create equity. And people in the area of community development are working on this every day. So why not unleash, not have these compartments and how do you say silos? This is all part of our economy, right? That’s how we’ve created this great United States of America is because we’re a capitalist society that can be limiting, as far as shared equity. But we also have, at the same time, working side-by-side. Community development and community development finance for good, and together we can create a strong economy where we have shared equity and not extremes in income and wealth inequality.
Andy Johns: You got into a little bit of what I was going to ask you here just in closing, but to kind of end on a high note. You had good momentum going there, but we’ve talked about a lot of the challenges, and I know we’ve run a little bit long, and I really appreciate your time and the time of the folks listening. We’ve talked about obstacles. We’ve talked about the challenges. This is complicated work. This is as soon as you think you’ve got something figured out, then the rules change and there’s something else. Somebody with your experience, you could be doing a lot of different things. Why is it, and you mentioned some of the folks that keep advocating, why is it that that that you keep fighting, that you keep moving forward on this, that you keep bringing it up? What is it that keeps keeps you going, looking at such a complicated problem, knowing that it’s going to be a probably an entire generation of networks being built now? It’s a big problem, and it’s a big thing to solve. What is it that keeps you you plugging away and working on it every day?
Jordana Barton-Garcia: I think that the stakes are really very high, and I think I truly believe that how well we do right now, with IIJA and the funding, the federal commitment. And in dealing with this is a very important ethical issue of our digital economy and technological advancement. I just think the stakes are too high, and we all need to be involved, and we need to all be all in. And that people and our young people need a whole new set of knowledge, education, experiences, the experiential learning that we’re going to be creating in the digital workforce programs. That’s what they need. They need hands on. They need to work with engineers and utility – like in in my field, I was in community development. I started learning about the issue of the digital divide from the lowest income communities in our country. And I could have said, “Well, no, that’s not part of community development.” But it is people were telling me it is right, and it matters to the economy. And then I started researching. So utility lawyers and engineers became part of my colleagues in community development. So we have to constantly change and grow, and that’s the nature of the digital economy of the fourth industrial revolution.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: And it’s critical, right? If we’re going to be able to put humans first and create what we want to create and use technology for good to the maximum that we can. They’re already examples of using technology for harm. But how do we create great digital citizens that are equipped and young people know how to navigate the Internet. They know what’s happening behind the scenes. They know how big data is collected. They know the dangers and , Internet safety and security. Build all that into our education, and we have the chance to create that right now with the digital equity grants and programs. And we’re creating that in South Texas and the Mississippi Delta. Very holistic programs. And looking at our society broadly and saying, “Oh, no, the mothers in the colonias. Yeah, they can understand broadband networks.” And guess what? If Jordana Barton-Garcia can, anybody can. No, no. You know, of course, I had to learn. Right? I’m not an engineer, but I had to learn enough to know what makes good policy, what are the best practices, what you know. So yes, people can and need to know all of these parts of of technology and the digital economy.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: And we will be a stronger country for it. And we will survive the challenges that are so evident before us and our young people from some of the persistent poverty regions – guess what they’re going to solve climate change challenges, right? They’re going to solve some of our biggest challenges with entrepreneurial ideas because they’re going to have access to the Internet. They’re going to be knowledgeable about how to navigate and be safe and secure and create great policies. So that’s the world that I am hoping to create, and I want it to be equitable, right? I want diverse companies to be owning the assets of the digital economy and the big data. And I want people of color, low income people, rural people, all people to be at the table equally to be able to make policy and products and so forth that are going to determine the fate of humanity and our ability to create more opportunity and shared prosperity and a strong, strong country and economy. So that’s why I’m committed to it. I think it’s actually people always talk about we’re at an inflection point. Guess what? We are in an inflection point.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: And I think we all need to be involved. And that’s IIJA. I’m hoping for the very best in the federal funding, and I’m going to work as hard as I can with all of my energy, and I’m not alone, right? It’s all these hundreds and thousands of people I’m working with, local communities, to think not with scarcity, but understanding what we can achieve, what we can have when we partner, right? Because when you partner, work together the way some of the co-ops and small ISP’s are partnering with communities and community-based organizations, when I see that commitment coming together, that synergy, that is wealth. That is. We’re not. If we use all that we have, all the assets that we have, and stop thinking in silos and we have this finite pie to divide up, and then who gets what, whatever. No, actually, we can increase the size of the pie by partnering together and creating those synergies. And that’s us in the United States and in the world at our best as human beings. We need something that’s bigger than the sum of the parts. And so that’s what I’m committed to. And that’s my hope for our future.
Andy Johns: Beautifully said and inspiring insights all the way around. So, Jordana, thank you for joining me on this episode, and I think we covered a lot of really good and important ground there, so thank you for your time.
Jordana Barton-Garcia: Thank you. Great to be here.
Andy Johns: She is Jordana Barton-Garcia with Connect Humanity and with Barton-Garcia Advisors. I’m your host, Andy Johns. Thank you for listening on this episode. We hope you will tune in to the next episode of Rural Broadband Today.
Outro: Rural Broadband Today is brought to you by Pioneer Utility Resources. Rural Broadband Today is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studio.