A Pew Research Center report has found that one in ten Americans access the Internet exclusively by using their smartphones:
10% of Americans own a smartphone but do not have broadband at home, and 15% own a smartphone but say that they have a limited number of options for going online other than their cell phone. Those with relatively low income and educational attainment levels, younger adults, and non-whites are especially likely to be "smartphone-dependent."
[...]
Some 13% of Americans with an annual household income of less than $30,000 per year are smartphone-dependent. Just 1% of Americans from households earning more than $75,000 per year rely on their smartphones to a similar degree for online access. 12% of African Americans and 13% of Latinos are smartphone-dependent, compared with 4% of whites.
Ars Technica points to other troubling signs about the state of broadband access in America:
US Census data from 2013 has previously shown that 24.9 million households out of 116.3 million nationwide have no Internet access, not even mobile broadband on a smartphone. In Detroit and some other cities, nearly 40 percent went without Internet service.
Nearly all Americans live in areas where they can buy broadband service if they could afford it, but Internet providers often don't compete against each other in individual cities and towns, keeping prices high. A new analysis by The Center for Public Integrity shows how broadband providers divide up territory in order to avoid competing against each other.
This is more of an "Ask Soylentils" question: A professor of mine once said in class that the digital divide between Internet "haves" and "have-nots" would eventually create serious social discord. Any thoughts on the subject?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @05:06PM
Just more reason to run an open internet-only wifi access point [openwireless.org] on your broadband connection.
I have a VPN service that permits 5 simultaneous connections so it is no trouble to route all the free-loaders over to another country, which eliminates anyone ratting me out to my ISP for breaking their rules against sharing and vastly reduces my legal exposure if anyone does anything naughty.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Friday April 03 2015, @06:21PM
I never thought of that! dump the visitors on the other end of a vpn. it helps them, it keeps me in the clear and the isp can't see what's going on. brilliant!
only problem is: many sites are vpn-unfriendly. when I use my vpn and terminate in a non-english country, if I'm on a site that uses, say, google calendar (sigh) the words come out in that foreign language. then again, I get to learn how to say the days of the week in many languages ;) also, many shopping sites will flag you as 'suspect' if you come in via a vpn. mail is also very variable; gmail routinely sits there and spins (and does not complete on send) if I'm on a vpn. finally, thunderbird seems to cache too aggressively and when I dial back into a vpn and get another connection, I aways have to kill tbird and restart it (why? not sure. have not looked at code yet but its annoying as hell!)
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday April 03 2015, @06:32PM
Beggars can't be choosers.
Unless they choose to skip sites that are VPN-unfriendly.
Also, try basic html mode on gmail?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Friday April 03 2015, @07:55PM
its not the web stuff, its the network stuff (greylisting or similar).
I use imap and so its not even about using web interfaces. if I'm not on vpn, gmail works quickly. if I'm on a vpn, I will see the sending tbird window hang and data is not ack'd and the window does not go away. I then kill tbird and restart and that often will refresh the cache and, at least tbird does not have a problem getting to the server; but the server sees me coming from spain or germany or where ever, and they deny imap, or grey list it for an unusually long period of time.
also, when I dial in on my vpn and send mail, even if its accepted it often gets dropped somewhere and the recipient never gets it. they may be looking at sender ip addr and seeing it be 'weird', thus rejecting it even if its all the way at the destination side.
vpns can really mess with you. just be aware. sometimes I have to turn the vpn off to get mail thru. really sucks...
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Touché) by Immerman on Friday April 03 2015, @07:28PM
In fairness, anyone that does shopping over an untrusted access point is an idiot, so you're probably doing them a favor by getting them flagged as suspicious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @07:43PM
100% of my web access is through a VPN and I switch up the endpoint 10-20 times a day (my VPN providers is PIA and they have a couple of thousand endpoints)
I use gmail sporadically but with full javascript and have not had those problems.
I use thunderbird 100% of the time with multiple pop accounts, and one low-traffic imap account and have not had those problems.
I am on a recent version of ubuntu and am using openvpn running on my system (not on the the router).
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @07:01PM
I used to run open public wifi from my house across the street from some public housing and a sandwich shop. I proxied all traffic through Tor with a transparent proxy (had a custom script for proxying dns queries too, but now Tor has built-in support for this). Yes, I am a coward, and yes, I appreciate that Tor exit node operators aren't.
I am now dependent upon public wifi. I use httrack (with the proxy bits as a peer to squid), offline apt, youtube-dl, etc. to get most of my content, and fill in the gaps by tethering over my cell.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tempest on Friday April 03 2015, @05:11PM
So an anecdote: a person I work with only uses Internet through her phone, with her son doing the same. They have a PC, and USED to have broadband but since they never used it, they dropped it. If you don't want to mess with a PC, and you don't use any kind of streaming, broadband may not even make sense compared to say ipad with cellular.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 03 2015, @05:42PM
They wouldn't be included in the 7% "smartphone-dependent" population that "have neither traditional broadband service at home, nor easily available alternatives for going online other than their cell phone".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 04 2015, @03:48PM
True, but I know several folks with smartphones who never had a computer, and others who have neither computer nor smartphone. One fellow did have broadband, but both the ISPs here pissed him off so he dropped them.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 5, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Friday April 03 2015, @05:13PM
Enough said. The people who fall into this group are also disproportionately of low socioeconomic status, so it amounts to a regressive burden.
Tethering limitations should also be abolished. Hard data caps should be abolished. Throttle globally or even per-person over reasonably high unthrottled limits, but with A/V ads popping up everywhere and the average page size ballooning close to 2MB, data caps which you transgress silently - not due to your direct actions - are not acceptable. Imagine being a child in such a household, and being told "no you can't watch that educational video or just browse the web to enrich yourself, because of our data cap." It's a regressive burden on educational level and achievement, not just economic status.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday April 03 2015, @06:17PM
But people who aren't poor fight back when you nickle and dime them.
It's like you don't want giant corporations to benefit from the fact that some people can't afford to break their contracts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TK-421 on Friday April 03 2015, @07:53PM
My first thought after RTFS was that 10% of Americans have a crappy internet experience. 4G isn't everywhere. 3G is enough to make you want to gouge your eyes out (I expect a humorous comment on what one might see on the internet to also want to make them want to gouge their eyes out). 4G makes things better but the simple process of pulling up your $device user manual PDF will usually leave you wondering if you've run out of storage, pegged your CPU, or getting crappy cell service. Maybe that's just my carrier though.
My second thought was that data caps are a horrible way to experience the internet as a primary connection. If I were starting my career over or trying to change from a different career to my current career I would be downloading lots of trial software and emulation packages so as to build enough experience to win that first interview. A cap is the last thing I would need.
My third thought started down the path of thinking how the "last mile" for these folks wasn't an issue and the carriers still mangle the experience, but then I realized that they own this last mile as well. They essentially own the handsets. Fortunately there are some options to wrangle SOME control away from the carriers but the connectivity and handset options have been all but locked up and it pretty much sucks just like my land ISP.
My fourth thought was, if the smart phone dependents are largely below mean national income, how in the hell do they afford a data plan. I am well above mean and I still cringe EVERY time I open the bill. It's the same every month but it's always top four monthly utility and that is with a healthy discount. For the cost of my smart phone with data I could get a traditional mobile phone and pay for residential internet service and still save money. I must be missing something.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 03 2015, @08:07PM
There are plans as cheap as $20/month.
For example, this one costs $20/month and gives 250 MB of data: http://www.myrateplan.com/cell-phone-plan/giv-mobile-20-plan [myrateplan.com]
$19/month, 500 MB a month, 750 minutes a month, unlimited texts: http://www.myrateplan.com/cell-phone-plan/textnow-wireless-tall-plan [myrateplan.com]
Unlimited talk, texts, and data for $25/month, but the data is at 2G speed: http://www.myrateplan.com/cell-phone-plan/giv-mobile-25-plan [myrateplan.com]
An AC below claims to get 10 MB of data and is clearly posting at work.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Saturday April 04 2015, @02:02AM
Plus, my cable internet is over $60 a month (I know it's horrible, but we stream a lot of video sometimes, play games etc.), nix that and get a $20 data plan and that would likely be affordable for most.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 1) by theCoder on Saturday April 04 2015, @02:30PM
$20/month for 250MB? I get 200 free each month from T-Mobile on my tablet on the off chance I might need more and purchase a 500MB pay as you go chunk of days. But I'm on Wi-Fi at home and at work (I do have broadband) so I never need to buy more. It's a tablet so just data, no voice or text so that might be a problem for some people. I have made VoIP calls on it though.
I do cringe at how much people pay for their cell phones. Especially when they are on minimum wage complaining about how they don't make enough money to make ends meet. It's really hard to support a wage hike for people who will use the extra money to go buy a new iPhone 6. [npr.org]
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Friday April 03 2015, @08:57PM
This is what I was thinking too. If they can't afford both, why'd they choose the more expensive option? Decisions like that are probably a good indication why they're below the mean to begin w/.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @09:35PM
Separate phone and wired internet at under $20/mo is not something I can find. My cell bill is less than my broadband bill, although neither is the absolute cheapest option. Also, poor people probably spend a lot more time on the go (riding buses, etc.), so wired internet is probably less valuable to them. And wired internet requires a computer in addition to the phone they will already own (depending on how poor we are talking, it also requires a stable housing situation). I can definitely see cell-only being a better choice than wired-only for many situations.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 04 2015, @02:00AM
More expensive? Sheeeeet, I get unlimited data (plus unlimited minutes) on my phone for $40 a month. Good luck finding a decent internet connection for that price.
(Score: 1) by OffTheWallSoccer on Saturday April 04 2015, @04:59PM
I have a younger cousin who struggles with money and could only afford dialup Internet and a prepaid cell phone plan. I gave them my old smartphone and for $20/mo added it to my Sprint family plan. This enabled my cousin to dump the dialup Internet and the prepaid cell phone plan. They get faster Internet now, and we are still on an unlimited data plan.
Of course this may not have been cost effective if I didn't already have a family plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @06:38PM
I only have 10MB a month of mobile data for use at home but I have internet at work. Internet access is expensive and I can't justify the cost at the moment.
Less than $30,000 per year: Latino.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by No Respect on Friday April 03 2015, @06:57PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by shortscreen on Friday April 03 2015, @07:16PM
The local cable co had a terrible habit of running relentless TV ads for their own services. I was their customer, and on the occasion that I actually watched something on TV, I had to sit through this crap about how I could get super fast internet "starting at" 20$ or whatever. Except I couldn't of course, because that was a promotional rate only available to new customers, and their never-advertised "normal" rate was vastly higher and increasing by leaps and bounds. After a while, I came to hate the cable co. I got tired of overpaying, and having my money go to a bunch of dicks that would use it to bribe politicians. So I dumped them.
Now I get by on a 3G connection. I generally browse without JS or Flash as it is, so I can hit all my usual sites without worry about data consumption. Sometimes I disable images also, since I have noticed web developers are doing a stupid thing now where something that renders as eg. 150x100 on the page turns out to be a 2MP JPEG that they were too lazy to resize on their end. Then at the end of the month I have 1GB-2GB left in my quota to download stuff. I remember having to use dialup throughout the '90s, so this isn't so bad. And the thought of all that money that is not going to the cable co brings a smile to my face.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @10:26PM
I see you were a dissatisfied Comcast customer, too! I cut the cord about two years ago, haven't looked back since. Back a couple of years ago when Huawei was first breaking into the US market, I recall telling a colleague at work that I would seriously consider switching to them if they made it to our area. He reminded me that there was a suspicion that the PLA was using that to spy on Americans. I responded that, in the case of huawei, they were only interested in finding out about US military secrets. OTOH, our own government seemed to want to spy on us to find out everything about us, military or otherwise. He didn't have an answer for that. Right now, I get my internet through a wireless modem from Verizon which is 3G. That sucks too. Download speeds are typically around 20-40 kbps, frequently much lower. If it goes higher than 100 kbps, that is really screaming for Verizon. I am thinking about getting a 4G smart phone now. Hey, Verizon! How about increasing the 4G download speeds and lifting the data caps on 4G? That might make my decision to upgrade a whole lot easier!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 04 2015, @02:58PM
Tip: Setup a http/html proxy on a computer with fixed line that will strip out all unnecessary javascript, flash, resize images, removes bullshit tags (div?) and generally reduce tag-junk. Then it sends it to your mobile terminal and you save a lot of irritation and data capping.
However 3G/4G radio link will make the latency of the connection to be 10 times higher than otherwise. So fixed line has some advantages. And if you can get to the point of presence (PoP) for good ISP through your own physical link means. The ability to screw your local encumbered monopoly goes up.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Sunday April 05 2015, @01:35AM
Low income use mobile internet only? Perhaps ditch the cell phone and pay for broadband in your house instead? I have hard time believing that mobile internet can be cheaper than hardline.
Nearly all Americans live in areas where they can buy broadband service if they could afford it, but Internet providers often don't compete against each other in individual cities and towns, keeping prices high. A new analysis by The Center for Public Integrity shows how broadband providers divide up territory in order to avoid competing against each other.
That's called collusion and price fixing. Justice department, wake the fuck up?
America is literally getting robbed.