All this week, Marketplace Tech is doing a new series called “The Internet Is Everything,” where we look at access, infrastructure and cost. That question of cost comes down to competition, infrastructure and whether telecom companies have invested in bringing service to where you live. Molly Wood speaks with Mignon Clyburn, a former member of the Federal Communications Commission. She says we have to acknowledge that race and poverty play a role in where companies decide to offer access.

This fall, the FCC is planning to award up to $16 billion to increase broadband availability across the country. But the data the FCC is using to decide where broadband is most needed is wildly inaccurate, even by the agency’s own admission. Host Molly Wood speaks with Nicol Turner Lee, who researches technology access as a fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. She said the pandemic has made the mapping problem even more obvious.

This fall, the FCC is planning to award up to $16 billion to increase broadband availability across the country. But the data the FCC is using to decide where broadband is most needed is wildly inaccurate, even by the agency’s own admission. Host Molly Wood speaks with Nicol Turner Lee, who researches technology access as a fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. She said the pandemic has made the mapping problem even more obvious.

Internet access is the ultimate essential service. But, like so many things in this country, access is not equal. This week, host Molly Wood starts a new series called “The internet is everything,” starting with listeners’ personal stories.

Earlier in this pandemic, Apple and Google joined forces to help create a shared underlying technology for digital contact tracing apps. But at least in the United States, they haven’t caught on. Apple and Google’s tech only work with apps developed by government health authorities. And almost no states have developed those apps. Marketplace’s Jack Stewart speaks with Ina Fried, chief technology correspondent for Axios.

There’s a national conversation going on about race and inequality, and that includes at work. A lot of companies are holding internal listening sessions to start to address systemic racism. And because of the pandemic, many of those tough conversations are happening via videoconference. For some, it may be easier to have tough conversations from the comfort of their own home. Marketplace’s Jack Stewart speaks with Kira Banks, a professor of psychology at Saint Louis University, where she runs the Race and Intergroup Dynamics Laboratory.