San Antonio Leverages Its Fiber Infrastructure to Extend School Networks to 20,000 Students in Need

A new initiative called Connected Beyond the Classroom will leverage city-owned fiber infrastructure and $27 million in CARES Act funds to connect students across San Antonio’s 50 most-vulnerable neighborhoods in a bid to close the digital divide and ensure teachers, students, and their parents can continue to learn this fall and beyond. While state law limits the communications services that municipalities can provide, the city is able to leverage its existing fiber network used by the municipal electric utility, government and community buildings, and public safety (called COSANet) to expand school networks all the way to students’ homes. The bulk of the network is already in place, connecting community anchor institutions, light poles, and other city-owned, fiber-connected structures. The $27 million the city received from the CARES Act will, in part, go towards closing the necessary gaps and extending COSANet outward into the targeted neighborhoods. Last-mile connections will come, according to city leaders, from private LTE wireless providers with whom the city has set up agreements for service. This approach resulted from the understanding that using LTE towers were the quickest solution to targeting desired areas. Students will then be able to connect to the network (from their own or school-provided devices) as usual to access class content, though households or devices will need the appropriate hardware (like an exterior antenna or LTE adapter) to translate that signal into one their devices can use.