MAYOR MENDEZ WANTS TO CROSS BROWNSVILLE OFF THE LIST OF "LEAST CONNECTED COMMUNITIES"

 

Mayor Trey Mendez

The Brownsville City Commission approved using 19.5M from the American Rescue Fund,  a pandemic relief appropriation that totals 195.3B, to install 95 miles of fiber optic cable for high speed internet.

Mayor Trey Mendez acknowledges that Brownsville currently is one of the "least connected" cities in the United States and he anticipates these monies will be a start in "crossing our name off that list."

The 19.5M is a portion of the 65M the city received from ARP funding.

Can an argument be made that broadband installation is actually part of pandemic relief?

Well, consider that for a large portion of the current school term, students have been learning remotely via the internet.  That puts students without internet access at risk of falling behind.  

Business and industries also depend on the internet for almost every aspect of control from communication with corporate to cashiering sales, determining inventory and ordering product.

It's instructive to compare a city of similar size to Brownsville that began this process almost two decades ago.

Corpus Christi, a city of 348,000, began initiating broadband in 2002, at first limiting the plan to meter reading of the city-owned gas and water utilities, initially spending 17.8M.

Having automated meter reading saved the city an estimate 32M over the next 20 years.  A side benefit was identifying gas and water leaks expeditiously.

During the  pilot phase of the meter reading program, it became apparent that Wi-Fi was a logical add-on. The meter reading system uses only a small amount of the system’s capacity, and only twice daily. Adding aWi-Fi network for municipal and public use added another 6M to the cost.