COVID-19 is forcing New Yorkers to become more reliant on the Internet for work and school. But that could be a problem for people whose main way of getting online is through their phones.

Most people get internet service in two ways: through a wired, broadband connection, or through their smartphones. Right now, many service providers are letting people use more broadband data at home. But not all of them are addressing data caps for phone, which is the only way many low-income people can use the Internet.

"If they are subject to strict data caps, they're either not going to be able to do their homework or teleworking, or they'll have to pay more," said Gigi Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology & Policy and an advisor to former Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler. "Do their wireless packages have data caps, and what are those caps? Because a lot of packages don't give you a lot of data before you are charged extra or throttled back."

Sprint and T-Mobile are offering unlimited data to all current customers, but Verizon and AT&T are only offering free, public access to WiFi hotspots.