Russell Brandom and William Joel write: “If broadband access was a problem before 2020, the pandemic turned it into a crisis. As everyday businesses moved online, city council meetings or court proceedings became near-inaccessible to anyone whose connection couldn’t support a Zoom call. Some school districts started providing Wi-Fi hotspots to students without a reliable home connection. After years of slowly widening, the broadband gap became impossible to ignore. This map shows where the broadband problem is worst. Specifically, the colored-in areas show US counties where less than 15% of households are using the internet at broadband speed.”