The digital divide affects government employees, too

When the work from home orders for most government employees went out, one city CIO said some employees, unexpectedly, didn’t have internet access at home.

“We bought up every [wireless access hotspot] we could find,” the official said. “We went to stores, we bought on Amazon, we did everything we could.”

One higher-education CIO said the institution bought Wi-Fi hotspots for parking lots on campus so that employees, students and others could drive, park and maintain social distancing while connecting their devices to a reliable internet connection.

“We told people, ‘Hey, if your internet connection at home is unreliable, come park on campus and sign on,’” the CIO said.