(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

Bowling Green State University's Center for Regional Development partners with partners that are all over the state and all over the county and all over the region, for that matter.

Just recently, they held their State of the Region address, and one of the focuses was on bridging the digital divide.

So we're joined by the CRD Director, Dr. Nichole Fifer, and from the Toledo Lucas County Public Library's, Lucas Camuso-Stall.

So thank you both for being here.

Dr. Fifer, talk about Center for Regional Development.

It partners with a lot of people around the region, focuses on a lot of areas.

Economic development, workforce development, but it goes beyond that in other ways.

So talk about the State of the Region address you just completed a week or two ago.

- Yeah, sure.

So yeah, we work in economic, community development, and that includes a myriad of facets of, you know, providing technical support for our community partners, like the Toledo Lucas County Public Library.

So our State of the Region is an annual event that we put on where we give literally the state of the region.

So we give the numbers, which a lot of people come just to here, you know, what's our unemployment look like, what's our labor force participation, et cetera, jobs, GRP.

Everything looks like it's going well this year.

Just a snapshot on that.

And then we also kind of hone in on a particular theme that resonates strongly in the region.

What is something that's happening that people are talking about that we're hearing a lot when we're going out in the community and having conversations?

And so one of the things that we've been working on a lot and have been hearing a lot about is about connectivity, about digital connectivity.

And so one of my project managers, Lisa Lawson, she's really sort of focused on that area for a while, having done some USDA work around rural inclusion.

- [Steve] Rural.

Yeah, mm-hmm.

- [Nichole] And so we were approached by the library a couple of years ago to assist with a digital equity strategy for Lucas County, specifically.

And that's where this relationship started.

And we started really sort of diving into what does connectivity look like in Northwest Ohio through our partnership with the library.

And that was sort of a big focus of the State of the Region and sort of brought us to the space.

But we've also heard it, you know, we do strategy building, we do SEDS work all across Northwest Ohio.

And everywhere we go, whether it's rural or urban, we're hearing about the need, right?

That connectivity in some places is really great, in other places it's not.

And that it's really about, like, connecting people to jobs.

It's about connecting people to education.

Here at BGSU, obviously, that's really important, right?

We wanna upskill folks and make our education accessible to our whole community.

But also things like telehealth, you know?

Like, in the rural communities, that's a really big thing, especially with an aging population.

So yeah.

So we wanted to hone in on this question for the State of the Region this year and have an opportunity to showcase our work with the library and all the things that they've been doing as a sort of regional champion.

And then to also just talk about, you know, what are the needs that people are expressing.

- Yeah, and I know if you look through, there's an extensive report.

This has been a year-long sort of project.

It's not something that just was done in a few months.

Lucas, when you look at the library's part of this, I know that you look at the fact that we're looking at Lucas County, but I think what you found in the report was that generally what applies to Lucas County applies to a lot of the other surrounding counties, even though they might not be as heavily dense population-wise.

But the need is, I think as you said, Dr. Fifer, is there, whether it's a densely populated area or one that's more rural, where there hasn't been a lot of broadband expansion.

So talk about the library's focus.

Obviously, library's been at the focus of technology its entire existence.

So talk about your role in this.

- [Lucas] Yeah, well, thank you for saying that because a lot of times folks are a little confused of, like, why is the library leading digital equity work here in Lucas County or in the Northwest Ohio region?

And oftentimes we tell folks that same story.

The Toledo Lucas County Public Library was one of the first public libraries in the nation to offer a microcomputer lab back in the '80s.

And we've also been offering internet to individuals in our county since 1996.

So we have really been working, you know, in a steadfast manner to close the digital divide in Lucas County.

But as Dr. Fifer noted, several years ago, we approached CRD because we were really curious of quantifying the issue of digital disconnectivity in our county.

During the pandemic, libraries saw firsthand the digital disparities.

Of course, you know, folks were, almost overnight, really forced to immediately go online, whether that was- - [Steve] To try and figure it out.

First of all, where and how?

- [Lucas] Yeah, whether that was for school.

Now your job wants you to go remote.

You had healthcare appointments.

Now your doctor wants you to use telehealth.

I don't have a device to do that.

I, you know, don't really know how to work these portals.

So we actually saw quite frequently folks, you know, parking in our parking lots using wifi at all hours of the day and into the night, you know, even past our closing hours, just to be able to use internet.

So again, we approached the CRD alongside the Lucas County Digital Equity Coalition, which is a community coalition that the library runs, again, to quantify the issue in Lucas County.

What does disconnectivity look like?

How many folks are disconnected?

Who has devices?

Who doesn't?

And as you noted, you know, we put a quite lengthy report together to quantify that issue.

And really, our report and our work caught the eye of the state.

So Broadband Ohio, which is under the Ohio Department of Development, they are charged with taking monies from the federal government and distributing those across the state.

So they actually approached us and said, "Would you be interested in doing regional-based work?"

So they established a Northwest Ohio region, which is about 22 counties.

Fairly large region.

BGSU's CRD, it almost exactly maps their regional footprint.

- [Steve] Well, we'll use that.

All right, yep.

- [Lucas] So, of course, naturally we were like, "Hey, Dr. Fifer, Lisa, will you help us out in doing community listening sessions and also quantifying the issue from a regional standpoint as well?"

- Yeah, because anecdotally, everybody says, "Oh, you know," because you'll read even on social media, people say, "You know, who's got good internet service?

What do I do?

Where do I find it?"

Or someone who's just come into the area, especially in a more rural area, it's like, who are the providers?

Well, there may be one provider, maybe.

In some cases, none at all.

And you make a good point too about the fact that the federal government sees this as, broadband expansion, as a huge tool for the future, not just for economic development, but all the things that you mentioned, Dr. Fifer.

So it is you want to get out in front of this and have a plan in place so as that money becomes available, Northwest Ohio can take advantage of it and build this up.

You have this survey.

Well, I guess when you looked at assets, what did you find when you said, "Okay, let's go out and just take a snapshot of where it is and where it is.

And then how good is it where it exists?"

Because the library, of course, has locations all over Lucas County, as county libraries usually do, but there are places where you're still 8, 10, maybe 15 miles from a library.

So it isn't like, oh, I can access that hotspot from my house, whatever.

And as you said, people were parking in your parking lot to get access.

When you looked at the asset base, what did you find in Lucas County?

Did anything surprise you, or were you pleasantly surprised, disappointed by what you found?

What was the status of that?

- [Lucas] Yeah, a lot of those assets that we found, of course, and we were happy to see that the library was, you know, noted as a key asset.

But again, as you noted, you know, individuals, families, kids really deserve internet access at home.

So a lot of the assets that we uncovered and saw I don't think were quite surprising to us.

You know, we looked at what internet packages folks were utilizing, where they were connecting to the internet, but we also did two key surveys as well, which the CRD helped launch and develop.

So we did an institutional needs survey, which was really asking businesses and companies what their expectations were of their customers to utilize the internet and online platform.

So healthcare, right, was a really interesting piece of this, to see how they were asking individuals to use the internet, how they were asking individuals to use online portals.

But we also surveyed the community at large as well.

We saw about 656 responses from community members, which helped us really dig down even further.

So yes, we saw the assets, yes, we saw what institutional expectations were, but to hear directly from community members on what their struggles were, where they were lacking in devices and connection to the internet, or in some cases, how much they were paying for the internet.

Most of our respondents are paying, you know, upwards of $75 to $125 a month just for an internet subscription.

- Well, when we come back, 'cause that obviously, cost is an important thing.

And I know within the report there are ways that, you know, some of that can be subsidized or make it easier for people to afford broadband access as well.

So back in just a moment.

We're talking bridging the digital divide with the Center for Regional Development and the Toledo Lucas County Public Libraries.

Back in just a moment.

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Dr. Nichole Fifer from the BGSU Center for Regional Development, and from the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, Lucas Camuso-Stall, who's Director of Government Relations and Advocacy.

When we left the last segment, obviously when people look at access to anything, let alone digital, the subject of cost comes up.

And we were talking affordability.

So Dr. Fifer, talk about there's a divide there, too, obviously.

Because some people can afford as much internet as they want.

Other people are gonna struggle to get basic service and things we're talking about.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Affordability is one of the largest barriers to access to internet.

And that's for a myriad of reasons.

You know, as we were talking about, you know, in some places you have multiple providers who are competing for service and therefore prices get driven down.

And other places there's one provider and that's it.

That's your only choice.

And so there's kind of a monopoly that happens there.

Because of the cost of infrastructure, right, the ability to put those lines in is very expensive.

And so in some communities you have vast competition for people's service.

In other places, you don't.

And I think that you can see some disparities in what those particular places are, right?

And so in some communities, people only have one choice or two choices, and they're not very affordable.

As we were talking about our personal home service, right, I'm paying $130 a month to get the type of speed I need to be able to work from home.

- [Steve] That you need.

- [Nichole] Right?

When I need to.

And I know that there are a lot of folks who are sort of in that boat.

And so one of the things that has happened in the past few years is that there was the Affordable Connectivity Program that was developed sort of as a response to COVID to provide a low-cost internet service that was delivered through your internet service providers, so the people who were already providing service, but they had to offer a package that was right.

- [Steve] Reasonably, yeah, a basic package that provided at least some level of service that was adequate.

- [Nichole] Precisely.

And the federal government would subsidize that for $30.

And so a lot of our ISPs, then, had these $30 packages- - [Steve] Ah, packages.

Ah, okay.

- [Nichole] that then, essentially, homeowners or residents could get for free.

And so that allowed a lot of people to get connected that maybe couldn't have afforded otherwise.

And so that program, unfortunately, is going away.

And so the question sort of lays, then: What will fill that void, right?

Will ISPs create their own sort of subsidized packages to keep those folks connected?

Will those folks just become disconnected again?

So are we gonna have a huge gully again in access?

Or, you know, is the state gonna step up and provide something?

There's talk about doing some subsidies specific to ISPs that require them to offer a lower-cost package.

But there are a lot of caveats to that, right?

And so I think the big question that we're sort of facing right now is that we have, you know, lots of people in our region who were depending on this connection, or the subsidy- - [Steve] Subsidy.

Yeah, mm-hmm.

- [Nichole] who are gonna lose it very soon and will become disconnected.

And it was a large financial benefit to our community.

We were getting lots of money into the region from the federal government.

So our ISPs lose all of that money as well.

- [Steve] Well, and it's interesting, too, because people are gonna hear government subsidizing this, and they'll probably, because obviously if you go back to rural electrification, that was a very similar program.

There was an effort to say, "Look, electricity was the digital divide of that era."

That was the technology that separated people who could do a lot of things.

People who lived in rural areas, electricity wasn't feasible from the, like, from Toledo Edison or whoever happened to be the provider, to put lines out where there were fewer customers.

So the government developed a rural electrification program, much like this, now in the 21st century, to deal with that electrification gap that existed.

So it's not a new thing for the government to get in and sort of do this.

Obviously, discussions at the state level, federal level require intervention by people who want to continue this program, wanna make sure it's available.

And from an economic point of view, as you stated in a number of ways, and just a health point of view, having access now is almost expected.

If you go online to the, you know, the portal for whoever's your medical provider, they expect you to do all of that.

They'll take phone calls, but the reality is they would prefer that you do it all online.

You can look at all your appointments.

You can look at all your medications.

Without that, you're on a phone if you're lucky, and if you're lucky, somebody is available to answer it.

That kind of thing.

So just something as simple as reminding yourself of when an appointment is would be a lot less simple without that access.

- [Nichole] Right.

And we did the institutional needs assessment, as Lucas said, and we asked, you know, healthcare providers, social service providers, education providers, like, what are your expectations for use?

How much do you depend on portals to do your work?

And the response was pretty high.

And as we would just sort of anecdotally know from our lives, right, everything's on your MyChart or whatever.

But the notion that this is an expected part of business, right, and that it saves these businesses resources as well to provide things.

And so the tide is moving that way and will continue to do so.

And so as folks are disconnected from the internet, they're also disconnected from essential services, right?

And so that's where we end up in this sort of need for support.

- Yeah, and without that, I guess, and Lucas, you can probably talk about this, that if you're not continuing to move that connectivity ball forward, you're actually falling behind because other areas are going to continue to move and be more connected.

And you don't wanna be an area that is less connected, become less competitive in all of those areas, whether it's just normal day-to-day function, but business, obviously.

And the library, as you said, has always been kind of at the forefront of that technology curve, whatever the technology happened to be at the time.

- Right, right.

Both the library and the Greater Toledo Digital Equity Coalition, we've been doing a lot of advocacy around the Affordable Connectivity Program.

Senator Brown and Senator Vance have both put their support behind refunding the ACP.

They both understand that it's incredibly important and essential to anyone's life to be connected to the internet.

I mean, we have over 40,000 households just in Lucas County who are utilizing the ACP.

So again, 40,000 households, not 40,000 individuals, right?

So there could be multiple people.

- [Steve] Multiply that by 2.5 or whatever, and you get close to the, yeah, roughly.

- [Lucas] Exactly.

And even in our regional work, I mean, we saw some of our smallest, least populated counties were also leveraging hundreds and thousands, sometimes upward of half a million dollars through ACP as well.

So it was a very highly utilized, very popular benefit, and we know that it's incredibly essential for, again, our Congress folks to act and refund this program.

I don't know if that'll happen it or not 'cause, you know, sometimes can be a coin toss whether or not the government will even refund itself.

But we'll see.

(laughs) - [Steve] And then there's that.

Yeah.

- [Lucas] We'll see.

(laughs) - [Steve] Yeah, just within, yeah, 48 hours of us talking about this, yeah, it was just over the weekend prior to this that, yeah, they kept the government open for another however many days.

But it is an interesting thing because for a while I think people looked at internet connectivity as all, like, it was something, like, new and special and some sort of unique kind of thing.

But now, as you've both said, it's day to day.

It's what you do every day.

And, you know, if you look back, you know, we used to look at telephones.

They were landlines.

You didn't carry them around.

Now, without that, you're not connect.

Even something as simple as phone connectivity, let alone the kind of things we're talking with portals and the exchange of information, the ability to do business, globally, locally, regionally, whatever it is, it's just an expectation and almost a requirement.

Do you see, as you look at this now, and I think, you know, you focused on Lucas County, but there was also a lot of data in there, and we're probably gonna come up on the end of a break here, but a lot of that applied to and that was similar whether the county was densely populated or had a large urban area, or it was more rural.

The service levels were still somewhat similar, if not exactly.

But it wasn't that different in a county with 30,000 people versus a county with 300,000 people.

Am I correct on that or close to it, sort of?

- [Lucas] I would say the similarities between our urban community, so again, in the region, Toledo is really the only highly concentrated urban community that we have.

We're an incredibly rural region.

But still, the similarities of what we were hearing from community members very much so mirrored one another.

It was about access.

In our urban communities, access meant, I know the infrastructure is here, but I can't afford it.

In rural communities, access was, I really need to use the internet, but it doesn't exist.

- [Steve] They don't have it.

Yeah.

- [Lucas] Or I have to try and climb up to a grain bin to hook a satellite to get wireless.

You know the stories- - [Steve] You have to put an antenna to get internet service.

- [Lucas] The stories were quite creative, but nonetheless, like, very much so mirrored one another.

Very similar.

- Yeah.

Well, when we come back, there's obviously a lot of areas to cover.

We'll talk a little more about this.

But obviously, it's a big, big project and one that needs to keep moving forward.

Back in just a moment here on "The Journal."

We're talking digital access in Northwest Ohio.

Back in just a moment.

You're with us on "The Journal," and our guests are Dr. Nichole Fifer, the Director of the BGSU Center for Regional Development, and the Director of Governmental Relations and Advocation at the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, Lucas Camuso-Stall.

We've talked about infrastructure, but one of the things, too, people then have to have some sort of individual device to then connect to the connectivity.

So talk about what you found when you looked at the array of different devices or the way people were trying to get connected if they actually had service they could connect to.

- Right.

Yeah.

One of the things that we saw in our Lucas County digital equity gap analysis that the CRD helped us with was that there, you know, are nearly 30,000 households in our county that lack an internet-ready device.

So, you know, again, infrastructure may be within their neighborhood, but perhaps they can't afford that subscription.

Or if they could afford that subscription, you know, what is the good of internet unless you have a device that can actually connect to, you know, the internet and to be able to utilize that as well?

So we've seen affordability, again, from subscriptions to affordability around devices to be huge hurdles for our community.

At the library, we oftentimes see folks coming into our spaces to utilize new and emerging technology.

And we're actually working on and trying to design a program that will better help meet the device needs of our community members, where we'll help allocate devices to individuals who indeed need it most.

- Yeah, now, do you see any demographic, I mean, in terms of age, anything like that, where... 'Cause obviously, someone my age is probably not quite as adept as probably somebody who might be, we might be living next door to each other, but somebody who's 25 might be much more savvy at knowing what they need and how to get it and how to make it work, whereas I'm gonna require probably some help from the library to figure some of that out.

Did you see any of that, where it becomes a demographic situation?

Where, you know, I'd like to be online, but, you know, I just now got my cell phone figured out.

So what's this other thing you're talking about?

Any of that come into play here and ways to address that issue?

Because obviously, when we talk about telehealth, the older you get, the more health requirements you have in terms of access.

So was that something that popped up too?

- [Nichole] Yeah, absolutely.

Digital literacy and the ability to use the internet in a, you know, a productive and safe way, right?

Also, there's the notion of scams and phishing and that also.

- [Steve] That fear as well.

Sure.

- Absolutely.

And so that's a big piece also that comes up in the access equation.

And we heard a lot about that from folks just not knowing how to do things.

And so when the library has been working on developing this device program, one of the things that, and they do provide digital literacy support already.

- [Steve] As part of that.

- [Nichole] As part of that.

So if you can get to a library, you can get that.

But also, as people are shopping for those devices and trying to get a new device, offering then, hey, this is, you know, some support in terms of usage.

And when we talk about devices, I think an important thing to think about is, that we've talked a lot about is, you know, appropriate device for your needs, right?

So a lot of people may have like a tablet or a cell phone that can connect to the internet, but you're not gonna be able to take classes or do work, right, in most cases on that device.

So really knowing also what the appropriate device is to get you the things that you need to be able to enrich your life the way that you want to.

- [Lucas] Yeah, it's really about upskilling, as Dr. Fifer said, for, you know, what is most appropriate for your life.

A younger individual may be able to run circles around you with a smartphone, but eventually that- - [Steve] No doubt about that.

- Yeah, eventually that younger person is gonna have to be at a desk with the keyboard, right, and be in a workplace setting.

So really understanding, you know, yes, we have digital natives, folks who grew up in the technology wave.

Yes, we have digital adopters who are more of your older adults as well.

But again, those different needs.

You know, maybe an older adult really just needs a tablet to do their telehealth appointment, and that's most appropriate.

And how do we help upskill them on different devices?

Because again, lots of people do have smartphones, but you can't apply for a job on a smartphone.

You know, you can't do everything that you need to on a smartphone.

So it's about saying, "What do you need a device for?

What would you like to accomplish?

Let's help try to match you with that device."

- Yeah, how much do you need versus how, yeah.

And I guess, and and you touched on it, too, Dr. Fifer, is that whole security thing.

Because sometimes you will look at it, you'll be like, "Well, should I click that or shouldn't I?"

And maybe it's, 99% of the time, perfectly legitimate, but there's always that little doubt in your mind that, well, I think I'm looking at the actual website that I'm looking at.

I believe I'm connected securely, but am I really?

So that's something probably that people have to overcome too.

That just sort of, like, well, it all looks okay, but I've heard stories and anecdotal things or actual, you know, real factual situations where reality doesn't appear to be real.

Was there anything when you went out that surprised you about the results that came back?

Like, wow, we didn't know it was that good or that bad.

Or wow, there's a hole here we didn't know existed.

Anything like that that came up?

Or was it sort of, kind of fell in a way you thought it might come out just generally?

- I think the biggest surprise for me was how many rural people were accessing the ACP program.

I think when we think about subsidized programs, we often think about urban folks more than we do rural folks.

But the reality was there were a lot of rural folks who were relying on the support as well.

And just seeing that mirroring of needs in the rural community.

I think sometimes we forget that, like, rural communities also need to be in the modern world, right?

These folks need connectivity just as much as everybody else.

- Yeah.

And, of course, with the library, you're located generally in municipalities, whether it's Waterville or it's the city of Toledo, Maumee whatever.

And I guess the thing is, too, what it kind of points out in a way, in a larger way, is that you find out, okay, the rural communities aren't, in this case, are not that much different in terms of what they need and the kind of service and the kind of support they need versus the urban areas.

So we're closer together than maybe we think, even on this, at least in terms of what our needs are and how to approach it.

So real quick, we've got, like, about 30 seconds, what's the next step in this?

Because obviously, you've been working on this for a while.

What's the next step in the process now to keep this moving forward?

- With all the great data that we have now leveraged through our work with CRD, it's about leveraging monies from the state now and investing more in our communities that aren't being invested in.

Whether that be around infrastructure, whether that be around device access, using everything that we've been able to quantify now to say, "Invest in Northwest Ohio, invest in Lucas County or Wood County, or surrounding counties, because we have data that proves we need it."

- [Steve] Yeah, okay.

Great, great.

Well, thank you so much.

And we're out of time here, but obviously we'll look forward to having you back on to keep us, you know, involved in this and keep us aware of what's going on and moving us forward.

So Lucas, thank you very much.

Dr. Fifer, thank you.

You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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