COVID-19 has put aside lots of children way from shcool. They need internet access to conintue their education. Government and Big Tech companies need to find a solution for 1.7 billion children without internet.

1. Internet for Everybody
As described by UNICEF, two thirds of the world’s school-age children (1.3 billion children aged 3 to 17
years old) do not have internet connection in their homes. This prevents them from competing in the
modern society. It isolates them from the world. As schools are closed due to COVID-19, this affects
their education and their future.
Based on this, I would like to stress the importance of internet for everybody.
The most important thing about broadband penetration that I would like to emphasize is the regression
analysis of broadband penetration and GDP (gross domestic product) levels. This points to a positive
correlation between two variables. Those countries boosting higher GPD levels enjoy higher broadband
penetration. Causation works both ways.
In depth studies support that broadband plays fundamental role in accelerating the economic and social
development of a country. A broader base of people accessing the internet translates into more
commerce and improved educational opportunities (from Pyramid Research, 2009). So, this work shows
that companies, governments, policy makers, and other organizations, especially in developing
countries, must recognize the importance of internet and boosts the development of cheap broadband
wireless technology where the most part of the country population could access with a very low cost
rate with reasonable quality. This is the most important thing to be discussed and deployed in the year
2021 where a pandemic issue is causing lots of students to stay at home and most of them do not have
an internet access to support school activities.
This cheap broadband wireless technology could work in the unlicensed spectrum. This technology could
include all the technology innovation described in the last decade such as cognitive radios, employing
TDD structure based on OFDM, massive MIMO, artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve
performance and minimize interference.
The support of governments, policy makers and other entities such as the big tech companies is
fundamental for this new technology to succeed as an ecosystem of silicon vendors, notebooks,
smartphones and other devices to access the internet.
Sergio Cruzes, MsC, PMP, MBA
sergio_cruzes2002@yahoo.com
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/broadband-access-sergio-cruzes/