'Closing The Digital Divide': Connecting The Least Connected In Texas

The Texas-Mexico border is one of the least connected in the US.  A map from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas shows border counties bathed in bright red, meaning less than 60 percent have home access. It’s a distinction shared by the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia, other parts of the country with pernicious poverty. But that may change. This small city — Pharr (TX), just a handful of miles from the border — is trying to break up the dark red line of disconnectedness that plagues low-income border communities. In December, Pharr started connecting the homes of high school students to broadband internet for free as a year-long pilot program for something much larger.

Since 2016, the federal Lifeline Program has offered internet service providers like Spectrum money to provide broadband service to low-income people. It does for some residents in nearby Las Milpas (TX). The future of that program has been thrown into disarray by proposals to limit, or some say end the program, by Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai. Joanna Barton with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said she and others working on digital inclusion will push Lifeline, while it exists, as well as free Wi-Fi and these city-owned middle-mile projects wherever they can.