May I have a Wifi Latte?

I never really understood why my Wi-Fi never worked.  I got it at school on the Midtown East, in my brother's apartment in Glendale, Queens, and even on various subway train stops.  As a writer, I found it very important to have a desk where I could get into my zone and focus on putting all my ideas, opinions, and emotions into words but I could never ever get the Wi-Fi to work.  It was there sometimes but most of the time it disappeared and wouldn’t come back as if it never existed.  When I bought my IPhone 5, the sales representative assured me that although Sprint didn't have 4G coverage at the time they were working on getting Wi-Fi to all it’s customers.  Sprint occasionally sent me text messages about the company working on the Wi-Fi in my area.  Almost two years later and the only way I could get any work done in my Bushwick neighborhood was to grab a coffee at the new shop a few blocks away. Without realizing it, I was in the digital divide.

According to Jen Shradie's article "The Trend of Class, Race, and Ethnicity in Social Media Inequality: Who still cannot afford to blog?”, the digital divide is caused not by race or ethnicity but by class. Within the digital divide, we find spaces and groups of people left out the advances in technology, the resources to use it, and the funding for it.  My Bushwick home and its local residents was one of those spaces.  Sprint was reported to be one of the leading carriers of affordable plans for mobile services.  Perfect for the residents of Bushwick whose median household income of $37,648 was below New York State’s average of $55, 246 in 2011 (11237 Zip Code Detailed Profile." 11237 Zip Code (New York, New York) Profile. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.)  Sprint offers unlimited like services they say customers demand such as their new prepaid plan that was unveiled a few months ago.  The updated prepaid plans offer unlimited talk and text even internationally but little or no data.  Some of the plans do offer access to 3G or LTE but they can only be used wherever Sprint is available. (Cheng, Roger. "Sprint Revamps Prepaid with Cheaper Plans, New Phones - CNET." CNET. Unleash, 14 Mar. 2014. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.) So how do customers get access to WIFI?  Well they must go look for it at a coffee shop.

Within the last 15 years, Bushwick neighborhoods have seen an influx of the “hipster” community that include the residents of the once sought out Williamsburg and even lower Manhattan.  Rents have not only increased for residents but also commercial spaces (Barroso, Donzelina Augusta. "The Brooklyn Ink." The Brooklyn Ink. 24 Aug. 2014. Web. 16 Sept. 2014). The corner bodegas have been replaced with niche bars and you can’t get an empanada at the local cuchifritos spot anymore but a caramel latte, with Almond milk.  Wi-Fi is easily accessible at these businesses that usually are neighbors to the residents that can’t connect with a purchase of a vegan tomato sandwich or a round or two of PBR.  Why is that?  Companies like Sprint provide their services mainly to corporate customers and businesses (Sprint Communications, Inc. Company Information." Sprint Communications, Inc. Web. 16 Sept. 2014).

As Shradie mentioned, I do believe that the digital divide resides mostly on class.  Access to technological advances is not for the people who need it but who can afford it.  Bushwick is still predominately Latino but Whites take second place in the area (11237 Zip Code Detailed Profile." 11237 Zip Code (New York, New York) Profile. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.).  What happens is that unless you have the means to pay for the services at the businesses that offer Wi-Fi or have the funds to pay for the more expensive phone plans like Verizon or AT&T then connecting to the Internet is not going to happen.  Let’s just hope my Grandma in Puerto Rico has unlimited talk service.