Sioux Falls households without access to high-speed Internet fell by 20 percent

Covid instigated push to bridge digital divide

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

At the start of the Covid pandemic, it became apparent that many Sioux Falls households were ill equipped to deal with a world that transitioned online in an instant.

“We had children trying to do school from home who didn’t have adequate connections,” said Jodi Fick, the director of Siouxland Libraries.

It wasn’t just children. Many workers were also stuck at home with inadequate Internet connections, while older people were isolated from friends and family.

Mayor Paul TenHaken formed a group called Connect Sioux Falls. A survey of the city found that about 25,000 households did not have high-speed Internet.

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