--- title: President Obama: Get High Speed Internet to Every American description: "Internet access should not be based on where [a student] lives and how much money her parents make," Obama said. canonical: https://time.com/3960139/obama-high-speed-internet/ author: Tanya Basu article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-16T00:34:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:06:00.621Z article:section: Politics og:title: Obama to Expand High-Speed Internet Access for Low-Income Families og:description: "We are going to take another step to close the digital divide in America," he said og:url: https://time.com/3960139/obama-high-speed-internet/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7b4a587a336717f8/69885b22cd1bba21316fc4df/obama1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4224 og:image:height: 2376 og:image:alt: President Barack Obama speaks about economic opportunities at Durant High School in Durant, Oklahoma, in the Choctaw Nation on July 15, 2015. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obama to Expand High-Speed Internet Access for Low-Income Families twitter:description: "We are going to take another step to close the digital divide in America," he said twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7b4a587a336717f8/69885b22cd1bba21316fc4df/obama1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama to Expand High-Speed-Internet Access for Low-Income Families > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Jul 16, 2015 12:34 AM UTC  President Barack Obama speaks about economic opportunities at Durant High School in Durant, Oklahoma, in the Choctaw Nation on July 15, 2015. President Barack Obama speaks about economic opportunities at Durant High School in Durant, Oklahoma, in the Choctaw Nation on July 15, 2015. Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Jul 16, 2015 12:34 AM UTC President Obama announced plans on Wednesday to expand high-speed Internet to more low-income households across the U.S. “Today, I want to focus on one way we can prepare our kids and our workers for an increasingly competitive world,” Obama said in an address to the Choctaw nation in Durant, Okla., about the new initiative, called ConnectHome. “Today, we are going to take another step to close the digital divide in America and make sure everyone in America has high-speed Internet.” [ConnectHome is an offshoot of ConnectEd](https://www.whitehouse.gov/connect-america), a program the Obama administration launched to get 99% of American students in K-12 schools connected in their classrooms by 2018\. ConnectHome will begin by targeting 28 communities and about 200,000 families. Obama said Internet access remains “a reach” for low-income and rural communities, noting that “fewer than half of households \[headed by someone\] with less than a high school education are connected.” “Internet access should not be based on where \[a student\] lives and how much money her parents make,” Obama added. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3960139/obama-high-speed-internet/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3960139/obama-high-speed-internet/"},"headline":"Obama to Expand High-Speed-Internet Access for Low-Income Families","datePublished":"2015-07-16T00:34:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:06:00.621Z","description":"\"We are going to take another step to close the digital divide in America\"","url":"https://time.com/3960139/obama-high-speed-internet/","keywords":["White House","Tech","politics","Technology","Net neutrality","Native Americans"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7b4a587a336717f8/69885b22cd1bba21316fc4df/obama1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tanya Basu","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7b4a587a336717f8/69885b22cd1bba21316fc4df/obama1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Barack Obama speaks about economic opportunities at Durant High School in Durant, Oklahoma, in the Choctaw Nation on July 15, 2015.","caption":"President Barack Obama speaks about economic opportunities at Durant High School in Durant, Oklahoma, in the Choctaw Nation on July 15, 2015.","creditText":"Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3960139/obama-high-speed-internet/","name":"Obama to Expand High-Speed-Internet Access for Low-Income Families"}}]}] ```