This Co-Op Led Internet Service Offers a New Model for Closing the Digital Divide

The dream of free, high-speed, community-owned internet was once a reality in New York City. The People’s Choice Communications, a worker and community-owned internet cooperative, launched in 2020 and, thanks to subsidies afforded by the Affordable Connectivity Program, successfully offered fast, cheap internet in the Bronx while the ACP was still active. However, the city's decision to exclude the co-op from the Big Apple Connect program puts the People's Choice at risk caused by losing thousands of subscribers. “No one believed that we could actually build out the system,” said Troy Walcott, president of People’s Choice Communications, “and then we built it.” Locating local internet providers Building from the ground up The People’s Choice is an unlikely and rare story of broadband connectivity. It began with Spectrum workers going on strike. In 2017, 1,800 Spectrum workers went on strike because of unmet health care and retirement benefits demands after Charter Communication’s ... Read full article.