What I learned about the importance of broadband literacy in urban areas from the barbershop

An article by Navarrow    View Comments

I’ve been going to the same barber for about 12 years now. When I first met him he was working in a local barbershop and now in true entrepreneurial fashion he is now the owner of two full service salons in the area. He knows I’m in the tech space so we always have discussions about tech gadgets mixed in with the sports trash talking and banter about current events that you can only hear at the “shop” So today when I went in with my sons to get a fresh one and there was a little wait till it was our turn. I decided to whip out my iphone (like I do a pretty much at any idle moment) and finish watching iron man on Netflix (I started last night and it’s one of my favorite superhero movies). When it was my turn in the chair my barber asked me what I was doing and I proceeded to explain. The more I gave him details about Netflix streaming the more I could see I was getting the attention of the rest of the shop. By the time I told them that I could watch movies not only my computer but on my xbox 360, playstation 3 and my Wii, the whole room was hooked. The shop was explosive with people talking about how much they spend on renting movies while others talk about how cool it would be able to watch the whole season of their favorite show or one of their favorite movies. Things had almost quieted down until someone asked me the price. When I told them 8.99 a month then room erupted as if someone hit the game-winning basket. Half of the room was talking about signing up to Netflix and then watching movies on their game console, the other half about how they were going to get iphones so they could watch them anywhere but ALL of them talked about how they were going to get a broadband internet connection set up at home.
As I walked out of the shop I thought about how this is on this is only one of the 1000 of benefits of having broadband access and how no one in the room knew about it. All of the Internet companies wish for a room of new customers that they could introduce their products to but more importantly a room full of people to immediately see the value their product brings their lives. I also thought that this is the data the government should be hearing and seeing for themselves not scare tactics about hypothetical problems. The real problem is that there are people out here who are not aware of the transformative power of the broadband and the many ways it can benefit and improve their lives. And the lionshare of those people missing out are minorities. I want to see more people make connections like I the one I saw today. I truly hope the government puts it’s focus in making sure everyone has access to broadband, educated in it’s benefits and made digitally literate. Once we do that there will be more broadband conversations in barbershops everywhere.