The very first My Healthy Broadband opens with a challenge to the way we talk about the digital divide: it is not only a rural story, and it is not only about pipes in the ground. Every quote below plays the exact moment from the broadcast — just tap it.
Broadband is a utility, not a luxury
Co-host Dr. Rob Gillio joins from State College, Pennsylvania and immediately pushes back on the rural-only framing — pointing to Cleveland neighborhoods where providers run cable straight past low-income rentals. His argument is historical: this is infrastructure, and we have done this before.
And I've said this before, and I say it often, it's as important as electrification was in the thirties, it's important as indoor plumbing was in the twenties. It's a utility we all need and should fight for for our fellow citizens.
Coach Lucy Howell brings it home to a single front porch — the reason this show exists at all.
My grandma down the street in Tucson, Arizona, if she's not digitally connected, she may be at risk with access to prescriptions or access to her medical records.
Twenty-five years of Arizona advocacy
Steve Peters traces the origin of the Arizona Broadband Stakeholders Network — a COVID-era pivot into the Arizona Broadband and Digital Access Task Force, and the free Thursday 8 a.m. calls that still draw 30 to 60 people from universities, community colleges, K-12, nonprofits, and Senator Kelly's office. His message on the end of federal money is bracing and hopeful at once.
And so I just want to really make that clear that just because that federal money's gone doesn't mean the world has stopped. Still people doing really awesome stuff.
“A super determinant of health”
Kelly Mukherjee of ASU's Enterprise Technology Institute demos As One, the interactive Arizona broadband map, with layers for hospitals, schools, libraries, community tech “hives,” and two mobile EV RVs. She walks through the Mossberger story — a Parkinson's patient receiving speech and physical therapy over Zoom — and gives the episode its defining phrase.
So broadband is actually considered a super determinant of health. If you don't have broadband access, so if you don't have strong internet access, can you reach your doctor through telehealth? That might not be possible, right?
Dr. Rob adds the detail that makes it actionable: Mossberger's ancient desktop proves you don't need new hardware to be connected — you need access and someone to show you how.
Forty laptops and a look on a grandmother's face
Teresa Caesar of Tucson Unified's FACE department describes the district's INSPIRE partner network and a Starbucks donation that turned into something bigger than the devices themselves.
But they also awarded forty students laptops. So this year, forty high school students within TUSD got laptops. And they came right here to the resource center here, Menlo, where I work. And to see the look on the faces from the grandmas that came to pick up, the moms, it was just priceless.
What you can actually do
The show closes on Digital Inclusion Week and a challenge that costs nothing.
I challenge everybody out there to look at somebody in their family and challenge them to ask them how they would rate their digital health literacy.
Digital inclusion means giving this phone to the neighbor that doesn't have it, show them how to connect to the internet.
That is the whole thesis of this series in one sentence. Connectivity is not an IT problem. It is a health problem, an education problem, and an economic problem — and it is solvable by neighbors.