scte long read
Coming to a Smart TV Near You Digital Inclusion By Melissa Cogavin, Broadband Journal
While a lot of us became quickly accustomed to ordering paddling
pools on Amazon during that long, hot summer of 2020, coaxing children into online learning (the polite term, we are a technical journal after all), a time when a 9am workout with Joe Wicks on YouTube was briefly a novelty and Disney+ a thrill, it is worth remembering that for many that first COVID lockdown was as frightening as it was isolating. A worrying number of people were unable to access those online resources (arguably they dodged a bullet with Joe Wicks) and those lockdowns seemed interminable at the time. The broadband business of course thrived, carving up fields and connecting homes at a frenetic pace, receiving record investment, doing a heroic job under challenging circumstances, meeting demands for superfast broadband that rose exponentially over the next two years and are still rising today.
“Digital exclusion is not a fringe issue. Around 1.7 million households are offline. Almost 4.5 million adults do not own a smartphone, rising to more than one in four among the over-75s. Eleven million adults lack the essential digital skills needed to complete basic tasks such as setting up an email account.” Digital Poverty Alliance
30
DECEMBER 2025 Volume 47 No.4
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker