County officials want to provide broadband Internet service in underserved neighborhoods, contrary to a long-awaited report that dismisses the idea.
The digital equity study, which they commissioned two years ago, warned the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors against the high cost of building an underground fiber network and instead suggested partnering with the private sector. That didn’t impress supervisors Tuesday, siding with residents who said the study ignored abandoned homes without web access. Supervisors voted unanimously to send the report back to the drawing board and return in 60 days with a cost and timeline, signaling their willingness to take on the heavy lifting of running an internet utility.
“We don’t expect the cost to be low,” Supervisor Otto Lee said at the meeting. “But now it is a clear necessity. It is the closest thing to a public service like water and electricity, to survive and function.”
County Supervisor Cindy Chavez led the discussion on creating a countywide fiber optic network, or one managed in collaboration with other local government agencies and nonprofit organizations. She called the report “barely adequate” in showing how the county could meet a long-term standard set by the federal government for one gigabit, or 500 megabits per second, of broadband speed.
Nina D’Amato, the county’s chief information officer who oversaw the report, said workers would evaluate how the county could take on providing internet to underserved residents.
“It’s very expensive to become a county broadband provider,” D’Amato said.
The county entered into a $208,000 contract with a consulting firm, CTC Technology and Energy, to help develop an analysis of the idea. The same firm worked with neighboring Santa Cruz County on its own strategic plan for broadband, which county broadband advocates praised for acknowledging the challenges of the idea while exploring concrete strategies and costs.
“Our strategy does not do that,” Chávez said at the meeting. “We hired the same consultant as Santa Cruz nine months before them to develop a broadband master plan, and they got their plan after 16 months.”
A county spokesperson said the technology company’s work on the study began to compete with work the company was doing for several other counties and the state. As a result, county employees had to intervene and end the study.
The problem has become more urgent since enrollment in the federal program was suspended. Affordable Connectivity Program in February, which offered low-income households a discount on their monthly Internet bill and a one-time discount on the purchase of a laptop, desktop or tablet.
“Thousands across our county have lost internet access and do not have the means to move forward and are not even accounted for in this (report),” Devon Conley, vice president of the Digital Equity Coalition, said at the meeting. “The (report) also focuses on what it calls a concentrated area that has the greatest needs (east San Jose, south San Jose and south county). But it only represents 28% of the needy households in the entire county.”
Board President Susan Ellenberg said if funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program is restored, the county needs to communicate more carefully to enroll more people.
“Santa Clara County had one of the lowest enrollment rates of eligible households in the state,” Ellenberg said.
Several speakers from a Milpitas-based wireless broadband company, Tarana Wireless, argued against a one-size-fits-all solution to the digital divide.
“It is affected by a number of factors. No one technology is deploying reliable infrastructure to every home in the county,” said Gabriel Morgan, director of the company. he said during public comment.
Officials agreed that they can only improve connectivity through a variety of strategies.
Supervisor Sylvia Arenas suggested that a revised report on the digital divide should include options for distributing unused county devices to the community, as well as community Wi-Fi programs that San José officials established around schools such as Independence and Andrew P. Hill high schools.
“It’s another affordable way to provide free Wi-Fi access to people. But that doesn’t mean they will have access because they may not have the devices,” Arenas said.
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.
