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Be a Good Neighbor: Share Your Wi-Fi

With a few steps, you can help someone in need access your connection

A woman wearing protective mask and gloves uses a mobile phone while waiting for a train at M1 underground line Cadorna station on May 04, 2020 in Milan, Italy. Photo: Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images

Where I live in Toronto, Canada, I enjoy a speedy 1.5 Gbps fiber connection — about 24 times the national average of 62 Mbps. But things look much different in a neighboring community just a few blocks away, where friends pay steep prices for speeds that top out at just 40 Mbps. This felt unfair before the pandemic, but the coronavirus has underscored the problem of unequal internet access.

Take, for example, a recent story in the New York Times examining how parking lots that can catch Wi-Fi signals have become a digital lifeline: “The family takes turns driving down to Brookton’s Market, a small country store with a gravel driveway, to park and connect to its free internet. Mr. Derry’s daughter, Ellie, a freshman at Colorado College, goes almost daily for her Zoom class sessions and to download big files that she can take home and work on offline.”

There’s something we can all do about these inequalities: open up our Wi-Fi to our communities to use for free by creating guest networks for anyone to access, similar to what you’d find at a local coffee shop. It’s an opportunity to be a good neighbor without leaving your home.