I have to wonder if the broadband digital divide is more a question of the broadband financing management. I believe more could be done with revenues collected by the black church when addressing the digital divide, particularly in the area of ownership of technology and content delivery platforms.
By some estimates, black churches have collected $420 billion in revenues since 1980. That’s close to $12 billion in annual revenues. I know some black churches invest in businesses within their communities; and while a very small fraction of the venture capital community, African Americans are joining the ranks of venture capital firms.
Venture capital likes areas of that offer large returns and for venture capital those areas are primarily technology. Historically when we talk about the digital divide we talk about access to broadband, but I don’t buy into that definition. African Americans are over-indexed on smart phone ownership and use of social media. Where African Americans are not over-indexed on is platform ownership. While on the energy end the argument has been that the capital intensity for building a grid makes it near impossible for minority ownership of electric utilities, the open architecture of the internet chips away at that notion.
And waiting on government is not a wise plan, if you want to call waiting a plan. The Federal Communications Commission is more concerned with underwriting broadband providers via its Connect America Fund versus promoting the deployment of content delivery networks. Private sector initiatives like those taken by Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to build their own global private networks are best for deploying content delivery networks, not only for the delivery of content but to capture and analyze data as well. This is where the money is, in my opinion, for communities of color and where venture capital generated in communities of color should be going.
