Baltimore’s digital inclusion efforts a model for the nation | GUEST COMMENTARY

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) — a historic federal program that has helped more than a quarter million Maryland families save on internet service — will soon wind down; 23 million households nationwide will be affected.

Cities across the country are urgently looking for ideas on how to prepare for this setback and keep their most vulnerable citizens connected. They’d do well to look to my hometown of Baltimore.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic made home internet service more essential than ever, Baltimore’s track record of getting its citizens online ranks among the best of any U.S. city. The secret to Charm City’s remarkable progress: a playbook that brings the public, private and nonprofit sectors together as partners, rather than adversaries.   

Under Mayor Brandon Scott’s leadership, and with strong support from the City Council, Baltimore has unleashed this collaborative mindset on all three dimensions of the digital divide: broadband connections, home computers and the digital skills needed to use them.

The city’s Bmore Connected campaign — a groundbreaking partnership between providers, nonprofits and Baltimore City Information & Technology — helped more than 56,000 Baltimore households sign up for the ACP. The Pratt Library and the city’s Housing Authority stepped up to help drive awareness and enrollment.  And, more than a hundred nonprofits joined the effort through the Baltimore Digital Equity Coalition.

The results speak for themselves: The share of Baltimore households with a home Internet connection surged more than 10 percentage points from 2019 to 2021 — fourth best of any city nationwide. The city’s nine-point jump in computer ownership was third best in the nation over that time. 

This same collaborative, “all hands on deck” formula that rocketed Baltimore to national leadership is now the key to protecting and building on our hard-won progress.

Mayor Scott and dozens of his counterparts from across the country have joined Comcast and other broadband providers in calling on Congress to extend the ACP.  But in the event that doesn’t happen, private sector initiatives will help keep low-income Baltimoreans connected. Comcast will continue offering low-income households a range of options to fit their needs and budgets, including our long-standing $9.95-a-month Internet Essentials program and higher-speed Internet Essentials Plus for $29.95. Recently, Comcast expanded our options, launching NOW, a portfolio of products offering pre-paid Internet, mobile, and TV plans to any customer in our service area — including home Internet plans starting at $30/month for 100 Mbps and NOW Mobile plans offering unlimited 5G and WiFi hotspot data for $25/month.

The digital equity puzzle is complex because there are myriad factors and barriers at play. Even with Baltimore’s recent progress, one in five homes city-wide still doesn’t have a laptop, desktop, or tablet computer; up to 80,000 city residents lack basic digital literacy skills; thousands struggle with housing insecurity, complicating efforts to sign up for home internet; and more than 60% of all unconnected Maryland adults say they’re just not interested in getting online — a clear sign we have more work to do communicating how transformative a digital on-ramp can be.

Neither city officials nor corporate leaders can cut through this thicket of challenges on their own. It’s going to take the whole village.

Luckily, we have proven models to build on. For example, Comcast’s Digital Navigator partnership with the Community College of Baltimore County invested $150,000 to build a corps of students trained to help digital newcomers get online; 65% of individuals who’ve participated in similar Digital Navigator initiatives nationwide say the programs helped them obtain a home Internet connection or home computer.

The most successful programs work through nonprofits that already have established relationships and demonstrated success within the communities we need to reach. Our partnership with the Maryland Center for Veterans Education & Training (MCVET), for example, empowered the group to provide free laptops, digital skills classes and workforce training to local vets. One participant, a Baltimore City resident named Kalem, leveraged the program to take online community college classes and earn a community health work certificate he plans to now use helping other veterans in need.

Mayor Scott’s visionary Digital Equity Fund puts Baltimore in a position to build on these successes and remain a national leader in the fight to bridge the digital divide.  As the city’s leading broadband provider, Comcast is committed to helping Baltimore reach the goal of closing the digital divide once and for all.

Baltimore native Broderick D. Johnson (broderickjohnson@comcast.com) is executive vice president of Comcast and was a White House Cabinet secretary under former President Barack Obama.