Nearly 9,000 residents of public housing in Los Angeles will receive free broadband internet access for the rest of the 2020-21 school year as part of a new partnership between the city, Microsoft, and the startup internet service provider Starry.
The new partnership comes as L.A. schoolchildren settle into another month of remote learning, and parents and public policymakers alike worry that lower-income students will be“COVID-19 has reinforced what was already a clear and unmistakable fact: internet connectivity is not a luxury in our time,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement. “It’s an absolute necessity for parents trying to work, students looking to learn, and families and friends seeking to communicate.
But the biggest obstacle is often price. The city has been working with telecom companies to reduce costs for residents, who can find resources for internet access at the city’sor by calling 311. This new partnership erases the price point entirely . Starry is part of a new wave of Wireless Internet Service Providers, or WISPs. Traditional ISPs run copper or fiber-optic lines into each housing unit from a trunk line, which customers then connect to a modem and wireless router to get Wi-Fi in their homes. WISPs, on the other hand, connect a powerful wireless transmitter to the trunk line, and then attach a small receiver unit to each building, without having to run cables between the two.
SamAugustDean
SamAugustDean It should be permanent.
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