S.A. addressing the digital divide

Once it was considered a luxury; now internet access is an essential utility

The city of San Antonio is undertaking an initiative to provide broadband internet access to thousands of low-income households and close the “digital divide.”

As the pandemic has forced students, senior citizens and many workers to shift their lives online, the lack of internet access has exacerbated an already bad problem for thousands of San Antonio’s residents.

Yet, advocates who have tried to increase digital access for much of the last decade are now armed with $27 million in federal CARES Act dollars.

What was once thought of as a luxury is now considered a utility as important as running water or electricity.

“The genesis of this whole thing was really that COVID had pulled the curtain back on just a tremendous amount of inequities and obstacles to just the most basic of services and the most basic information that a lot of other people take for granted,” said District 8 City Councilman Manny Pelaez, chair of the council’s innovation and technology committee.

“This city is the largest poor city in America. So, in order for us to dig our way out of poverty, we need to give people the tools they need in order to achieve wealth and achieve more opportunity,” he said.

Like much of the city’s COVID-19 recovery plans, which include worker training and small business support initiatives, details of the broadband expansion plan are still being worked out.

But the city and its partner agencies will first run a pilot program to bring internet access to the homes of students who attend Edgewood and Lanier high schools.

Across San Antonio, more than 38 percent of households have no fixed internet access — making San Antonio one of the least well-connected among large U.S. cities, according to an analysis by Jordana Barton, a senior adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.