40% of Philadelphia households without Internet access, says Mayor Nutter: what’s being done

Mayor Michael Nutter and Comcast's David L. Cohen tape an edition of NBC 10's @Issue with Steve Highsmith, discussing access to the internet in Philadelphia and the new 'Internet Essentials' program. Photo by Mitchell Leff for City of Philadelphia.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods program, the capstone class for the Temple’s Department of Journalism.

Forty percent of, or at least 230,000, Philadelphia households are without Internet access, according to a speech Mayor Nutter gave last week, introducing the Comcast Internet Essentials low-cost web offer to the city.

That disparity is concentrated in very specific areas: for example, just 10 percent of Kensington homes have Internet access while in Society Hill, the number is beyond 90 percent, Nutter said.

When the majority of residents in a given area do not have Internet access, the entire community is at a disadvantage. Web-enabled computers are among the most overwhelmed resources at Free Library branches, as residents seek and apply for jobs, students research and do school work and everyone tries to keep up with normalizing communication patterns.

For years, this divide has been on the minds of both city government and businesses both local and national, and a variety of initiatives have taken root recently.

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First of dozens of city computer centers opens in Center City

Mayor Michael Nutter logged on last week at the launch of a new computer center built for Philadelphia FIGHT, at 13th and Spruce streets.

This article is part of Broadband2035, a series in partnership with PlanPhilly funded by an award from J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism to explore broadband issues to impact Philadelphia’s developing comprehensive plan.

Last week, Mayor Nutter and Congressman Bob Brady opened the first of a series of new public computer centers aimed at reaching the estimated 41 percent of city residents who do not have access to the Internet.

On Tuesday, during Philly Tech Week, the Mayor logged on at the new center at Philadelphia FIGHT, an HIV/AIDS support organization — at 13th and Spruce streets, kicking off the federal grant-funded program. FIGHT has for more than a decade provided internet resources for people affected by HIV in the city.

“You should be able to get the information you need, access to services and programs all over the place,” Mayor Nutter said. “This is the future of this city, and it’s from a technology perspective.”

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IBM Smarter Cities Challenge to support Freedom Rings initiative: Mayor Nutter [Video]

Nearly half a million dollars in consulting and technology support from IBM that yesterday were pledged to the City of Philadelphia are more about education than gadgets.

The Smarter Cities Challenge, announced fall 2010, is a three-year initiative from IBM that will spread $50 million in services and tools to 100 city governments in the world. In the next six months, a half dozen consultants from IBM will start landing in Philadelphia and 23 other cities in this the first year of the Smarter Cities Challenge. Philadelphia is the largest of eight U.S. cities chosen in this round.

“I want to thank IBM for the opportunity to help us work smarter and more strategically about how we tackle the many challenges that face this great city,” Nutter said a small press gathering Wednesday. “This will lay the groundwork to create a citywide strategy that uses technology to support literacy and workforce development programs.”

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