Val Verde, California, School District Broadband Network Provides Case Study for Closing the Digital Divide

A public-private partnership to provide internet connectivity for residents in the Val Verde Unified School District (USD) serves as a model case study for broadband deployment to hard-to-reach populations. Val Verde USD, located in Riverside County (CA) will work with hybrid network provider GeoLinks to establish the first-ever broadband service explicitly for families of the school district, with low-income households receiving the service for free. In February 2022, the Val Verde School Board voted to hire GeoLinks to provide three internet options for households in the school district. The first will offer gigabit symmetrical service and the second will offer 200Mbps symmetrical service, both of which will require a technician to install a receiver at the residence. The third option will offer a WiFi connection of 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up but requires no installation, as it uses wireless mesh technologies. Such an approach is ideal for older multi-tenant housing lacking a contemporary twisted pair ethernet cable or fiber to each residence, or where an installation in every unit is disruptive, cost-prohibitive, or blocked by property owners. Each connectivity option will be supported with multigigabit backhaul capabilities, ensuring reliability through multi-point redundancy via connection to CENIC’s fiber network backbone.