Do you know of any families that do not have wifi?

[MattWanksock]

A colleague said today that the school her DC go to rang to ask if they had wifi at home and were able to homeschool for the foreseeable. I do not believe it to be a disadvantaged area but I have no idea as I don't work where I live.

At first I was surprised and a little upset for the children of the school that this question needs to be asked. Having spoken to DP he says I mustn't understand how privileged we are to not have been asked that question. I should also feel bad about such an assumption. It was also mentioned at the 5pm briefing that it would cost £100 in data on pay as you go to get complete a day of zoom and educational websites.

The school our DC attend just assumed we would have a device to do 1000 zoom calls a day which I do think was a bit off.

So... do you know any household with children 0-18 that does not have wifi? AIBU to think you would be hard pressed to find a house that didn't have wifi due to the way the world is now.

Yes I know of 3 families. They also run out of electricity and gas. That’s way labour wanted free wifi because they live in the real world.

Excuse typo - ‘concerned’ not ‘convened’

We don't have relaiable Wifi no. We have a contract yes, (FSM) but we are very rural and the signal is just AWFUL. Two people trying to use laptops / phones at the same time wouldnt work. Also we dont have two laptops. The one i'm using now came from a skip two years ago.
Our Academy asked me back in about May if there was a problem with wifi / equipment. I said Yes. Help was promised but not happened.
My ds is in Y11 with SN and SEN and no EHCp so cannot attend school either to use the equipment there (almost none, its an Academy in Special measures and truely woeful almost no books yet alone working laptops, no LIbrary, little paper etc).
So, yes, I can believe it.

I’m not poor can afford food gas electric wifi but I have 4 children and 1 laptop 3 are at collage

I know no one at all

I only got wifi when my son was about 10! Not that I couldn't afford it we just didn't have it. I had a contract phone with unlimited data and he never played online games. Then along came roblox.

No but I do know childrens primary had to send out phones with data sims and ipads to families.

Of the 93% that do, 24% only access it via a mobile phone

Wow! That is quite a high proportion.

Many pockets of society won't have Wi-Fi but they're often overlooked on MN

Given what you have just written, they won’t be represented on here either.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have Wi-Fi, but I don’t live in a deprived area.

We didn't / still don't have sky tv and all that expense. Netflix and disney plus is more than suitable.

I know several with no WiFi, 1 through choice others through cost

[quote Godimabitch]@WestSideBoom
I know someone with 7 kids on benefits. They dont have toothbrushes but have wifi and full sky package. Not saying that's everyone's situation just reminded me of them.[/quote]
Bingo!

Yes, I know families without WiFi.
We have WiFi but only have my phone for the kids to share, if I'm not at work. If I'm at home I'm remote teaching on my laptop so they can't use it. Husband was given a laptop to use from work and uses his phone at same time. We have more than one kid and can't afford more devices. I am sure many have the same problem.
As key worker children atm I'm lucky that my kids can go in but if that changes I'll be teaching remotely while my kids miss out.

The majority of mobile networks are offering increased data to customers who have children at home with no WiFi

There was a parent at dd’s school he didn’t a while. I believe she had it installed when her Dd started school realising she needed it and the mobile signal is crap here too). This was before covid though.

That’s way labour wanted free wifi because they live in the real world.

And bingo again!

Yes. A close friend of mine doesn't have WiFi. She uses the data on her phone which is limited. Our fiberoptic is £40 a month and I know you can get it cheaper but it's really no surprise people don't have it.

My ex doesn’t. Which is a problem when he has the children on school days. I know of 3 or 4 other families who don’t have it at all and quite a few more with not enough devices to go around.

You're in a position of enormous privilege if you don't know anyone in this position.

I think "enormous privilege" is stretching it a bit. I don't know any either, although I have no doubt that they exist.

I know 2 households who don't but they're elderly people. My friend's with kids I all do, but then they're mostly of the university educated, middle class, 2 good incomes sort of category. I can absolutely believe that within a mile or two of me there will be plenty of children who don't though. The rural provision thing is a good point, my friends struggle to run 4 devices off theirs when 2 adults and 2 children have to work from home / home school.

We lived without WiFi for 4 months. Got it again 2 weeks ago. We don't own a tablet, laptop or a computer either. Just my smart phone. DH has a non smart phone.

Yes I know of a couple of households that don't have it, one of those has children. They don't WFH as all in jobs that have to be done onsite - carers, builders etc. They have PAYG phones with data

Yes, and it wasn't so long ago that I was in school (less than 10 years) and my own family often didn't have money to afford heating/electricity some days so even if we did have wifi we couldn't have powered the router/device to access it. Thankfully my partner and I are in a far better situation than I was growing up but we didn't have any device for my daughter to use for remote learning until we managed to get a second hand one just in time for this lockdown. (We do have smart phones which we use to access the internet but that is no use for schooling).

My ex doesnt. But he doesnt have a computer, or a tv package now Ive left him. or a toothbrush, but he never had one of them anyway

The right to internet access is the right to know. The right to have access to knowledge and to learning.

Yes, it's a very real problem in the UK. In my voluntary work I've had people ask to use my mobile to apply for benefits, and to check their Jobcentre accounts that they're expected to have daily access to. But we're only open three days a week, and we can't hand over our mobile to everyone that needs help, what do people do for the rest of the time?

A friend of mine didn't until fairly recently and only got it because one of her daughters started paying for it once she was working.