Editorial Board

Broadband for All Starts With More Public Wi-Fi

High-speed internet access is 2016's "chicken in every pot." Here's how to get it right.

A Wi-Fi kiosk in New York City.

Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The 21st-century equivalent of Herbert Hoover’s chicken-in-every-pot promise is a faster internet connection in every home. It’s a laudable but, for now, elusive goal.

While working to reach it, however, the next president -- whether that’s Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, both of whom have promised far greater investment in public infrastructure -- must attain a more immediate objective: finishing the Obama administration’s work of connecting so-called anchor institutions across the nation.