Imagine you’re a high school student. Tonight, you have a couple hours of basketball practice. Your history teacher also assigned a paper on the industrial revolution. Using the internet to do your research when you get home should make it go quickly, however, so you’re not too worried. But imagine that there is no internet access at home. What do you do? Go to the library after practice? But it closes early and you’ll need dinner. Search the town for free public Wi-Fi spots? But it can take hours to find a spot that is free to use and has reliable service. Just not complete the assignment? But that will hurt your grade. For millions of underserved students this is the dilemma they face nearly every day.
The Reality of Home Internet Access for Underserved Students
Underserved students are defined as students who do not receive equal resources as their peers. As schools and teachers across the U.S. become more technology-focused, the biggest resource many students are lacking is home internet access. According to the FCC, 70% of teachers assign homework that requires a broadband connection to complete. Five million households with school-aged children, however, do not have internet access at home. This overlap between online homework and lack of internet access has been termed the “homework gap.”
The Homework Gap
The homework gap forces students out of the comfort and safety of their homes in search of an internet connection to complete their homework. It means millions of students are unable to do independent research, work on shared documents, connect with teachers and classmates, and submit assignments online from their own homes. This is an issue impacting millions of students. In fact, according to a study by the Family Online Safety Institute, 49% of students say they have been unable to complete a homework assignment because they didn’t have access to a computer or the internet. 42% of students say a lack of internet access caused them to receive a lower grade. Students are well aware of this divide: 80% say that students who do not have access to the internet have an unfair disadvantage to those who do.
Home internet access appears to have a lasting impact on the success of students. A 2008 study by the Federal Reserve found that high school students who have broadband internet at home have graduation rates 6-8 percentage points higher than students who don’t. Students with internet access at home also tested 24 percentage points higher than their disconnected peers. School districts have started to recognize the importance of leveling the playing field by ensuring that students have equal access to the resources needed to succeed. In today’s digital world, the best way to do this is by increasing home internet connectivity and closing the homework gap.
Putting Solutions into Place
School districts across the country are looking for solutions to expand internet service and make it more affordable. Companies, like Sprint and AT&T, have stepped in to provide both devices and access. This, however, is not enough to bridge the digital divide for many students who lack not just a device, but access. Also the service packages they offer are still not affordable to many students that are under poverty line. School districts have taken steps further to close this gap, largely by deploying a private LTE network mostly on EBS or CBRS spectrum to cover on and off campus areas and providing devices like MiFi, Customer Premise Equipment (CPE), or LTE enabled laptops for underserved students to use at school and at home. FiSci Technologies, a leading private LTE solution vendor can take part in.
The FiSci Difference
FiSci Technologies seeks to overcome the two major factors that prevent students’ households from having internet: the cost to build and the complexity to maintain a private LTE network. At FiSci, we provide the full end-to-end LTE infrastructure at an very affordable price. The small cell form factor Base Station provides both targeted area coverage and high capacity-driven scenarios in a very cost-effective way. Cloud based LTE core, aka, EPC eliminates prohibitive upfront CAPEX expenditure and enables quick launch of service. Plug-and-Play features for both eNodeBs and devices and dedicated technical support will provide ease of mind to IT teams of the school districts. Therefore the Total Cost Of Ownership (TCO) for school districts to build a private LTE network is significantly reduced. This makes building the network much more cost effective than using the services from major service providers, and it allows a much greater number of families and students to afford internet access.
FiSci doesn’t seek to bring internet access to underserved students as a charitable donation. Instead, serving the underserved is a core part of who FiSci Technologies is and what we aim to do. FiSci’s mission is to enable our internet service provider partners to expand their LTE networks to rural areas to bring internet service to those who need it. With this mission guiding us, we will partner with public and private organizations to bring reliable and affordable internet to millions of underserved households. Together, we will open new doors for underserved students nationwide.
Do you see students in your community struggling with this issue? Leave your thoughts below!