[1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe, N.M., Works to Bring Internet to Mobile Home Parks

[Richard Lowenberg]

Santa Fe, N.M., Works to Bring Internet to Mobile Home Parks

Within Santa Fe, access to broadband Internet remains a challenge for 
people who can't afford it, prompting the city government to roll out 
the second phase of a plan to install more free public Wi-Fi hot spots.

BY DANIEL J. CHACON, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN / AUGUST 26, 2020

https://www.govtech.com/network/Santa-Fe-NM-Works-to-Bring-Internet-to-Mobile-Home-Parks.html

Edwardo Hernandez has beautiful views and a bountiful garden at his 
mountain home near the village of Pecos.

Internet service? Not so much.

"We live 10 miles into the mountains, and we don’t get service," he said 
Tuesday morning while catching up on the news on his cellphone while 
parked outside the city of Santa Fe's Southside Branch Library, which 
offers free public Wi-Fi.

"We don’t even get phone service, so if we need to use the phone, we 
gotta come out to use the phone," he said.

Even within Santa Fe city limits, access to broadband internet service 
remains a challenge for people who can't afford it or live in an area 
that doesn't provide it, prompting the city government to begin to roll 
out the second phase of a plan to install more free public Wi-Fi 
hotspots. The city will be targeting its latest efforts on the south 
side, specifically at eight densely populated mobile home parks that 
have a combined 1,922 trailers.

“We thought, ‘How can we look at a broader initiative to sort of give 
some equity out there and cross that digital divide?’ ” Rich Brown, the 
city's economic development director, said at a council committee 
meeting last week.

“There’s about eight mobile home locations that are very, very dense in 
[City Council] Districts 3 and 4 that will allow us to put some antennas 
there so that they can have internet access, free public internet 
access," he said.

The antennas, which have a 300-foot range of service, will help not only 
students who are doing distance learning but also adults who may be 
looking for jobs online or just need access to the web.

The city plans to use a large antenna at the New Mexico Law Enforcement 
Academy off Cerrillos Road and Jaguar Drive to deliver free internet to 
the eight mobile home parks and surrounding neighborhoods.

"This will be our point-to-point station where we’ll be able to use 
antennas to reach out to these spots, giving them high-speed internet," 
Brown said.

Kate Noble, president of the Santa Fe school board, lauded the city's 
efforts Tuesday.

"The basic principle that’s important for me here is that education is 
economic development," said Noble, who used to work in the city's Office 
of Economic Development.

"We are in a scenario where we’re seeing the connectivity of that, not 
just in the traditional sense that you need a skilled workforce but in 
the sense that the school system really does support working parents and 
families," she said.

"As everything in the school system is being challenged right now, it’s 
incredibly clear that we need more community support around our 
education system in order to have effective equity and economic 
development," she added.

After students switched to online learning when the coronavirus pandemic 
first hit New Mexico, the City Council in April signed off an agreement 
with the school district for the city to install Wi-Fi hotspots at 
several school campuses. Though not part of the agreement, the city also 
installed Wi-Fi hotspots at several city-owned buildings.

The hotspots took longer than anticipated to install because of what 
Brown called equipment and paperwork issues. But more people are using 
them with each passing week. Unique users grew from 250 the week of July 
20 to nearly 400 the week of Aug. 10.

“I think that’s going to grow once folks are looking for jobs, folks are 
going to the school parking lots and doing distance learning," Brown 
said. "So, we’ll see a spike as school starts to get further into play.”

Lack of internet access isn't an issue unique to Santa Fe.

Brown said New Mexico lags behind much of the nation when it comes to 
broadband subscriber rates. Nationwide, the average subscriber rate is 
85 percent. In New Mexico, it's 77 percent.

At a recent legislative committee meeting, Brown said officials realized 
Santa Fe "is actually on the forefront of using broadband and extending 
it and leveraging it out to the neighborhoods."

Santa Fe Public Schools' chief information and strategy officer, Tom 
Ryan, said recently that Santa Fe is "in better shape than the rest of 
the state and most school districts across the country" with its 
remote-learning infrastructure.

While the school district is doing "relatively well" when it comes to 
ensuring students have technology and internet access, Noble said the 
district's good performance comes with a caveat.

"I asked [Ryan], ‘I assume you think this is basically a good 
instrument, a good metric that puts us as doing pretty well?’ He says, 
‘Well, yeah, it’s a decent instrument, but I would say that the bar is 
not very high,’ ” Noble said.

"He didn't quite say it this way, but what I heard from him was it's not 
that fine a measure of how we're actually doing because the bar is so 
low."


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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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