S.A. using traffic lights to put students online
SAN ANTONIO — The city of San Antonio will leverage traffic lights in its plan to connect 20,000 students’ homes to their schools’ wireless networks.
“In order to get into a neighborhood, you have to go where the infrastructure is,” said Craig Hopkins, San Antonio’s chief information officer.
The city will build LTE wireless broadband connections off an existing fiber-optic cable network that runs for 1,000 miles above and below ground and links libraries, police stations, public safety radio systems — and remotely operated traffic signals.
San Antonio’s stark income inequality is reflected in its gaping digital divide. Almost 40 percent of households don’t have fixed internet access, a Federal Reserve estimate shows. The neighborhoods most in need of reliable connections are inside Loop 410 and on the Southwest Side, a city analysis found.
The problem worsened for students after the coronavirus pandemic shut schools in the spring, pushing classes online. San Antonio’s school districts also will begin the school year completely online next month, with no classrooms opening until after Labor Day.
The Connected Beyond the Classroom project’s pilot phase will roll out this fall in six West Side neighborhoods in the Edgewood Independent School District and around Lanier High School in San Antonio ISD.
Using $27 million in federal coronavirus relief funds from the CARES Act, the city eventually will provide the wireless broadband to students in the 50 neighborhoods with the highest need, spanning eight school districts.
The fiber-optic cables contain substantial amounts of unused “dark fiber” that the city, per an agreement with CPS Energy, has the right to use. Crews will run new cables into neighborhoods from traffic lights, libraries and other connection points along the existing network.
Mini-towers and antennae also will be installed on vertical structures — including traffic light poles — to diffuse the signal, Hopkins said.
The newly activated fibers will make school district networks available to students in the affected neighborhoods. They’ll see their district’s network on their computers and smartphones and connect as if they were on campus, subject to the school’s restrictions and firewalls.
The limited connection from school districts to students does not run afoul of state laws that prevent municipalities from competing with internet service providers, city officials said.
“We were asked to connect students in their homes to their school systems,” Hopkins said. “We were not asked to give them public internet. We were not asked to make their households have the internet.”
Because no one is using the “dark fiber” in the existing cables, the expansion will not interfere with city or CPS Energy activities.
SAISD Superintendent Pedro Martinez touted the plan Thursday at a national conference of journalists who cover education.
“For the first time, neighbors will want more traffic lights,” he joked.
SAISD is wrapping up installation this summer of its own 80-mile fiber-optic network to upgrade connections at schools and district offices, funded with a $7 million Federal Communications Commission grant. The city also can expand from SAISD’s new network to connect student homes in some neighborhoods, Hopkins said.
SAISD handed out 4,000 wireless hotspots to students learning remotely during the coronavirus pandemic and is acquiring 10,000 more, Martinez said.
Hotspots are a shortterm solution to an emergency situation, but the CARES Act funding gave San Antonio an opportunity to help close the technological “homework gap” in a lasting way, said Brian Dillard, the city’s chief innovation officer.
“People have been learning remotely for the past two decades,” Dillard said. “This solution should have been in place before.”
To do schoolwork, and especially to attend classes via videoconference during school shutdowns, students need high-speed broadband-level connections better than those on many phones, Hopkins said.
The city will connect the West Side neighborhoods, where need is highest, by December. After working out the bugs there, city officials expect the remaining 44 neighborhoods will be connected rapidly, by September 2021.
In addition to parts of Edgewood and SAISD, the project encompasses neighborhoods in the North East, Judson, Harlandale, Northside, Southwest and South San Antonio school districts.
They were chosen based on four factors: the city’s “equity atlas map” identifying the most vulnerable communities based on race and income; the city’s digital inclusion survey that wrapped up in February; connectivity data from the U.S. Census Bureau; and discussions with a digital inclusion task force that included school district representatives.
The CARES Act is paying for the city to install new infrastructure to expand its wireless network for students. If gaps in the city’s network are identified during the work, the city hopes to use dark fiber from school districts or, as a last resort, lease it from telecommunications companies, Dillard said.
But families also need devices, such as satellite dishes or air cards, to receive the signal. Entities other than the city — potentially school districts — need to be responsible for upgrading or servicing those in-home devices, Hopkins said.
The city will order some equipment next week and then start setting up the core network that goes into the city data center, he said. After that, electrical power and network cables will be installed on rooftops. Anything on steel poles will be deployed last because steel takes up to eight weeks to deliver and steel pole installations require soil analysis and special permits, Hopkins said.