NextLight uses private wireless to connect low-income students

Low-income students in the St. Vrain Valley School District in Longmont (CO) will soon have access to free broadband services thanks to a private LTE network deployed by the City’s municipal fiber provider, NextLight. In 2014 NextLight built a municipal fiber network in Longmont that currently covers 44,000 locations and provides service to around 26,000 customers. NextLight also provides fiber connectivity for the St. Vrain Valley School District so Longmont and school district officials decided to use funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to build a private wireless network to provide free broadband service to the 4,000 low-income students in the district. Students that qualify for the service are on the St. Vrain Valley School District’s free and reduced lunch program. NextLight used the CARES funding to blanket the city with 38 cell sites using Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) General Authorized Access (GAA) spectrum and gear from Baicells. The network now includes 38 sites, and it covers about 50 to 60 percent of the 4,000 students that qualify for the free broadband program.