Christopher Mitchell

“I think the pandemic really accelerated broadband from a luxury into an essential service. I think if you asked people a year ago, they would have said, ‘Oh yeah, obviously broadband is an essential service.’ But you still had people who would say, ‘It’s OK if families have to go to the library or McDonald’s to get service.’ And now, almost everyone agrees that we need to have affordable access to every home.”

Christopher Mitchell is director of the community broadband networks initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

What did 2020 mean for state and local IT? Check out the rest of StateScoop and EdScoop’s special report.