The After School Access Project from UScellular

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Earlier this year we were approached by UScellular, a national cellular network company, about a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot donation program they have been developing. Their program, called After School Access Project, is aimed at overcoming the digital divide by providing free hotspots and two years of free internet service to nonprofits that are working with families where youth may benefit from a better internet connection to access their educational needs.

NNEDV and the Safety Net team communicated with representatives from UScellular to learn more about their donation program and to assess it for potential privacy or safety concerns for survivors of abuse. We believe that advocacy organizations could benefit from learning more about the program and how it might help the survivors they work with. Here are some key things to know about the program:

  • The donation program works with the nonprofit that applies to it and UScellular only interacts with that nonprofit applicant. UScellular does not directly interact with the recipients of the hotspots.

  • UScellular will ship hotspots to nonprofits, and those nonprofits can then provide them to people they are working with who have kids that could use them. UScellular will not ask the nonprofit for any information about the people they provide the hotspots to, or associate other identifying user information with specific hotspots.

  • UScellular will request the ZIP code of the receiving nonprofit to ensure the organization is within their coverage area, but will not request any other location information from the nonprofit.

  • The hotspots and internet service are completely free. Because no contact information about hotspot users is gathered, UScellular will not be able to send marketing materials to the recipients.

If your program is interested in this, here are some additional pieces to consider to ensure privacy and safety:

  • UScellular will set the hotspots up with each individual nonprofit, giving the hotspot a network name that can be requested by the program. If you are a program that has a name that is identifiable as a domestic and/or sexual violence victim services provider, we would suggest not using your agency’s name as the network name. When survivors use the hotspots in their home, this network name will be one of the wireless networks that will be visible when people nearby search for a Wi-Fi network.

  • When providing shipping information for the hotspots, make sure you’re only providing your nonprofit’s public office address.

  • Providing these hotspots as a resource will be a good opportunity to talk through Wi-Fi security and privacy with the survivor.

  • Like all mobile telecommunications service providers (TSPs), UScellular has the ability to geolocate any device connected to their network, even if those devices do not have GPS capabilities (which these hotspots do not). UScellular has told us that they retain geolocation data for devices on their network for a rolling twelve-month period, but they do not provide any user-accessible geolocation services for their hotspots.

  • All TSPs based in the United States receive lawful requests for information from law enforcement, and they generally comply with those requests. With that information, it is possible law enforcement could then connect internet traffic with a device.

Because of limitations in their national coverage, this program is only available where they currently operate. This includes most of: Illinois (not Chicago), Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. They also have coverage in small, select areas of California and Pennsylvania. We have communicated the importance of expanding their network to truly be able to address the digital divide across the country and in the territories.  They have indicated that this is a goal of theirs. 

We wish this program was more widely available to be accessible to any state or territory.  We will continue to ask these questions and urge availability to NNEDV’s entire membership when these opportunities arise.  We understand the limitations of UScellular, but still wanted to share a potentially helpful resources for those where they have coverage. The digital divide was specifically cited as a barrier for survivors in our 2021 needs assessment and we hope that programs like these can help where possible.