Toward Access Equality: Bridging the Digital Divide
Tarek S. El-Bawab · IEEE Communications Magazine · 2020
Before the Internet era, telephone penetration was the measure of U.S. progress in securing universal access to all its citizens (access to affordable telephone service). The telephone referred to herein was obviously the “landline”, which evolved from analog to digital throughout the second half of the 20th Century. By the mid-1990s, the notion of universal access had included access to computers and modems. Today, it encompasses a spectrum of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) devices, including desktop, laptop, handheld, wearable, and airborne devices, all of which connect to the Internet. And the term we use now to refer to the level of access pertinent to today's needs is Broadband Access.