Is there discrimination when it comes to internet service? Lower income residents and people of color have been more likely to be burdened by slow speeds of internet, according to a new analysis of digital inequities in U.S. cities. Research showed 27% of addresses in lower-income areas with CenturyLink were offered speeds below the federal broadband standard of 25 mbps, compared with 16% of higher-income areas. Seattle had the worst disparities among cities examined in the Pacific Northwest.
About half of its lower-income areas were offered slow internet, compared with just 19% of upper-income areas. Similarly, neighborhoods with more residents of color were also offered slow internet more frequently: 32.8% of them, compared with 18.7% of areas with more white residents.
Research also showed the worst deals were offered to the least-white neighborhoods. A spokesperson for Lumen, CenturyLink’s parent company, denied discriminatory intent and criticized current research. EarthLink also serves Seattle and Portland, but the analysis did not show evidence of income or race-related disparities.
Comcast, the primary internet service provider for both Seattle and Portland, was not included in the analysis because it doesn’t offer different speeds for the same price, a practice known as “tier flattening.” Tier flattening isn’t illegal.
Just a few years into its expansion in Seattle and Portland, however, CenturyLink’s appetite for expansion as a cable provider flagged, officials said. CenturyLink pulled out of the Portland market in 2020, and the company left the Seattle cable market in 2021, according to a spokesperson for the mayor’s office. In Portland, for example, two blocks north of the Lloyd Center on Broadway Street, CenturyLink offers an office building internet speeds of up to 15 megabits per second for $50 a month.
AT&T, Verizon, EarthLink, and CenturyLink disproportionately offered the worst internet deals to neighborhoods that were formerly redlined, whose residents are lower income and have a higher concentration of people of color than other parts of the city.
Is there discrimination when it comes to internet service? Lower income residents and people of color have been more likely to be burdened by slow speeds of internet, according to a new analysis of digital inequities in U.S. cities. Research showed 27% of addresses in lower-income areas with CenturyLink were offered speeds below the federal broadband standard of 25 mbps, compared with 16% of higher-income areas. Seattle had the worst disparities among cities examined in the Pacific Northwest.
About half of its lower-income areas were offered slow internet, compared with just 19% of upper-income areas. Similarly, neighborhoods with more residents of color were also offered slow internet more frequently: 32.8% of them, compared with 18.7% of areas with more white residents.
Research also showed the worst deals were offered to the least-white neighborhoods. A spokesperson for Lumen, CenturyLink’s parent company, denied discriminatory intent and criticized current research. EarthLink also serves Seattle and Portland, but the analysis did not show evidence of income or race-related disparities.
Comcast, the primary internet service provider for both Seattle and Portland, was not included in the analysis because it doesn’t offer different speeds for the same price, a practice known as “tier flattening.” Tier flattening isn’t illegal.
Just a few years into its expansion in Seattle and Portland, however, CenturyLink’s appetite for expansion as a cable provider flagged, officials said. CenturyLink pulled out of the Portland market in 2020, and the company left the Seattle cable market in 2021, according to a spokesperson for the mayor’s office. In Portland, for example, two blocks north of the Lloyd Center on Broadway Street, CenturyLink offers an office building internet speeds of up to 15 megabits per second for $50 a month.
AT&T, Verizon, EarthLink, and CenturyLink disproportionately offered the worst internet deals to neighborhoods that were formerly redlined, whose residents are lower income and have a higher concentration of people of color than other parts of the city.
