The Week in Internet News: Coronavirus Shutdowns Expose Digital Divide
No Internet, no school: School closings in the U.S. in response to the coronavirus pandemic are exposing the continuing digital divide in the country, U.S. News and World Report says. The Federal Communications Commission should step in to help poor students get access, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told a Senate committee recently.
Testing the Internet’s capacity: Meanwhile, there are some worries that millions of people potentially working from home in the coming weeks could literally “break the Internet,” Slate reports. Corporate VPNs, stock trading sites, and video gaming services could be among the services impacted by people working from home.
Bad news in the U.K.: In Britain, broadband networks aren’t ready for millions of people working from home, ABC14News.com reports. Many home-based Internet services in the U.K. still use old copper-based networks, and Internet users should expect congestion.
The downside of working from home: One Washington Post writer worked from home for eight days and ran into several difficulties, including Internet outages. “Video conferencing fails 50 percent of the time. The online tools I’m using — Slack, Microsoft Office, Dropbox — treat work as paramount, so it never really goes away.”
Hackers take advantage: Continue reading
