I know I've been updating a lot lately. You see, I originally got involved in all of this because I wanted to close the Digital Divide in a meaningful way. Our current situation has made it clear that this gap is worse than ever. Leaders who didn't pay attention to it in the past are scrambling to pretend that they are doing something about it now. In no area is this more apparent than in our "hotspot" access in Bellingham and Whatcom County. While running other errands I've been testing the "hotspots" listed in Bellingham that the State, the COB, and others are referring people to. Mostly poor people, including many students. The results aren't just pitiful, in the case of some they are abysmal. As in the connection test I ran today at the BPL Barkley Branch. Listed as a viable hotspot in the link. 
Here is the test data, which I of course have more detailed data for. 
Keep in mind the speed for internet as a right in Canada is 50 Mbits Down and 10 Mbits up. In Anacortes Gigabit fiber to the home is about $70 a month. I can go on, but let me get to the data.

The Barkley location mostly did not work from within my car. There are no problems with my equipment. The recommended way to use it is from one's car so that's how I set up the test. When it did connect the speeds were dubious at best. My connection strength, parked next to the building, was 15% to 30% but most often zero. 
When connected, my speed was about .15 Mbits up and .25 Mbits down. 
The latency was up to 12,000 ms. Yes, those are points in front of the numbers. So not even 1 Mbit. This puts the connection about 100 times slower down and 167 times slower up than even our inadequate federal standard of 25/3 for "high-speed" internet.  

Here is a breakdown of the other listed locations. Again, we've offered to help for free. A few politicians have gotten back to me, but sadly the Mayor has been silent. In short, none of the listed locations are viable for work and the city is sitting on its hands, thanks largely to our public works director, even though we have a public dark fiber network and prewired locations like our libraries whose connections can easily, and inexpensively, be extended. 
1. South Whatcom Library (Available in the Parking lot, park as close as you can.) Aka, it doesn't work very well. I was encouraged to "give it a shot," from my car. They have applied for a grant for outdoor antennas but that will take months.) 
2. Fairhaven Library Branch (In the parking lot, try the line of parking spaces closest to the library.) Aka, most of you can't really use this one either, but this sounds nice. I mean Fairhaven is a nice part of town. If I'm going to pretend to have public internet access anywhere, it's here. 
3. Bellingham Central Library (No real listing, but we know the connection is internal with no real reach outside. (Said Sarcastically) I'm sure the thick walls of this steel building won't interfere with people gaining access at all.) Aka, expect the same performance here as other pretend public "hotspots" around town. 
4.  Barkley Library Branch (Wi-Fi currently only available inside the building) Aka, best of luck, this also won't be a connection capable of doing any real work on. 
What do many of our politicians expect people on low-income connections who have lost access to do? Well it depends on the politician, but our public works director expects you to go out and buy an expensive wireless solution from AT&T, Verizon, etc. or keep waiting for one to become available. I mean, it's not like he's going to try to earn his $170,000 a year. (We've been in lockdown for 60 days as of today, when do they plan on doing something?). From the big telecom perspective, the answer is probably never or they'll do a poor job of it. Without customers to pay for new products the telecoms lose their interest. Yet another reason we need public infrastructure.