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.

My partners ex point blank refuses to get wifi put into the home for their 12 year old child. Not that it can’t be afforded, just refuses to get it.

The child didn’t have any access to their schoolwork during the first lockdown and the parent didn’t see the point in making the child do it as they were heading to high school anyway.

My partner and I have now bought the child a brand new laptop and a mobile wifi hotspot so they don’t fall behind again.

I imagine loads of parents either can’t afford it or choose not to.

I am a teacher and some of the children I teach don't have internet access. However, Idon't know anyone personally who doesn't.

We have WiFi, but we live in the sticks so it’s shit and can’t cope with Teams/Zoom without freezing 10 million times a minute.

I have unlimited data on my phone so DD has used it to log onto teams for lessons, then used the WiFi on her laptop to download/submit work.

DH is a governor at our DDs’ old primary school and the lack of devices/access to internet is a massive issue across the school so they’re hoping to provide dongles and tablets as a matter of urgency - although where the money for them is coming from is anyone’s guess

@Lucieintheskye

I worked in a school early this year where we asked what devices and wifi the kids had access to. Around 13% didn't have wifi or access to a device. This is a state school in SW England that had other children wearing tailored uniforms. The divide was made very obvious. The same children without wifi or devices had lower scores in assessments and more behavioural issues. And parents who went without meals so they could eat.

i was referring to this mention of tailored uniforms.

I know a few people who don't have WiFi at home, but it's pretty expensive where I live.
A lot of people just use the data on their mobile phones.

No I don’t know of any families without wifi. Even my parents have it and they live in a rural area in Ireland which only got broadband quite recently.

Remember how Corbyn wanted to give broadband to all cos its so essential. That's because so many poor households and kids don't have it. If people are going to foodbanks (and they are, thousands of people, this is my area of work) then they're not going to be paying for wifi.

@YoureAllABunchOfBastards

I know houses where some days they don't have electricity, never mind WiFi.

This!

Do you not listen to the media discuss child poverty in this country. If people can’t afford to feed their kids do you think they can afford the internet.

My DCs school sent out 2 surveys, one in September and one in December to see what families did not have the internet or the technology needed to home school children.

we have wifi but the absolute max you can get at our address is 9-10 MBPS ( this is paying extra) the standard broadband speed here is 3MBPS my DD will be fine but her SIM only phone deal only has 1GB data per month which wouldn't go for long on zoom or googlemeet

I work in school and we have lots of families with no access to internet. We have families who frequently don’t even have electricity!

We have it but live semi-rurally, and it can’t cope with dh wfh and two children on teams at the same time. Zoom rarely works and if it does we have to have cameras off.

I don’t have WiFi or a computer or laptop or an iPad

My aunt used to let a teenager from across the road use hers to do his homework. He literally sat on her front step. He'd knocked on the door and asked permission. Then told her she really should put a better password on it.

@Parkermumma07 do you just use your phone?
I hate using my phone where I have to type a lot. Give me a full size keyboard on a laptop over a phone any time.

Of course some families can't afford internet. I know some.

We've just had 10 years of benefits being cut and all frozen whilst prices and bills rise and rise, rents above the cap so some of the rent has to be found out of the paltry amount intended for living on.

The two child limit, which removes benefit money intended for the 3rd and subsequent children to live on - only penalises the children!!

But hey.. loads of people voted for this shitshow.

@CarryOnFestiveNamechanging we bought some Powerline adapters that you plug into the mains. You can use an ethernet cable with one and plug it into your laptop. It improved our internet connections no end.

WiFi isn’t that much in demand with very young children, I can absolutely believe it. Furthermore if parents are tech phobic that’s another barrier. They are unlikely to have broadband. I know a couple of people like that. Not old either

Broadband is quite expensive if you have not much money, usually £20-£30 a month, if you already have a mobile contract/payg why would you pay for broadband on top when you can just use you mobile data even though it's probably a limited amount.

While I don't know any personally you would find thousands of households like this. Some families are living in direct poverty they can't afford food and electricity. WiFi will be the last thing on their list of priorities

As people have said previously yes I have come across many homes that do not have WiFi, some can barely afford to put enough money on the card for electricity nevermind worrying about Internet.

I know people who use a neighbour's WiFi, and if something goes wrong there, they won't have it. It's possible people have it for a while, can't afford to pay the bill, and it gets disconnected, or something breaks and they can't fix it.
Some people might rely on a relative's or use a computer at work, but don't have WiFi for kids to use for home-schooling.
I think what the posters are saying about Labour wanting free WiFi is brilliant. That would be so great if it could ever happen. Surely some sort of advertising deal could be done to make it possible for WiFi to be rolled out to everybody. Free laptops too.

Right now, i dont have wifi. There are two keyworker adults and one teenager trying to do Y12 A-level work, and we are all using our unlimited data plans. Its not ideal, but we are moving house in a few days' time and my exH cut the wifi off a couple of weeks ago. We cant get reconnected in our new house until the 25th Jan!

I know plenty of households without WiFi.
Smart phones with data: yes. WiFi: no.

If my childhood was now there's no way we would have had WiFi. As a teenager my mother and I regularly went without eating so my baby brothers had food. I'm very fortunate to have what I have now and it's still a pretty basic existence.

Those little mobile WiFi devices would be good for schools to lend to homes, if it was do-able. I wonder if telecom providers might agree to make some available for free.
I'd like to see the government explain why it isn't possible to make WiFi free. There must be a way of making its provision inexpensive for government to ok this.