by With the federal government about to cut subsidies for internet service, LA County has begun work on a wireless broadband network that will provide high-speed connections for as little as $25 a month.
The county announced this week that it had signed a contract with WeLink of Lehi, Utah, to build the network and offer the service in East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights and South Los Angeles. Qualifying households will be offered a $40 per month discount on WeLink rates, meaning they could get the basic 500 megawatt per second service for $25 per month.
The deal brings a new internet provider to neighborhoods now primarily served by Spectrum and AT&T, which also offers discounted service to lower-income residents — albeit at much lower speeds. But WeLink will take months to build its network, which will rely on a series of rooftop antennas connected to the internet via existing fiber optic lines.
A much more immediate problem is the impending loss of federal subsidy. If Congress doesn’t renew its funding, the Affordable Connectivity Program will expire this month, ending a $30-a-month benefit that allowed 23 million lower-income households to get broadband service at little cost or at no cost.
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LA County has more of these subsidy recipients than any other county in the country — 983,000 families, said Eric Sasaki, a major program manager for the county’s Department of Internal Services. The county’s enrollment, he said, is higher than that of 45 states.
The county’s deal with WeLink has similar roots to the Affordable Connectivity Program, which grew out of the emergency broadband subsidy program launched by the federal government at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, Sasaki said, the LA County Board of Supervisors decided to explore ways to quickly bring high-speed internet to lower-income neighborhoods where more than 20% of homes were not connected. Concerned about children struggling to attend online classes, the county looked to place wireless internet hubs in libraries, parks and even restaurant chains before deciding to do demonstration projects in four regions: East LA / Boyle Heights, South LA, the northern part of San. Glen Fernando, and five cities in the southeast of the county.
The county has received $50 million in federal funds for the projects, but about $45 million will go to the East LA and South LA rollouts, Sasaki said.
“We are also looking for additional funding sources to help complete additional projects,” he said.
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The demonstration projects are proof of what is possible,” said Sasaki. “The idea was that these would be sustainable and long-term.”
WeLink’s East LA and South LA service area covers more than 275,000 households and small businesses within 68 square miles.
All or part of the following communities are served:
East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, Montecito Heights, El Sereno, Adams-Normandie, University Park, Historic South-Central, Exhibition Park, Vermont Square, South Park, Central-Alameda, Chesterfield Square, Harvard Park, Vermont- Slauson , Florence, Florence-Firestone, Manchester Square, Vermont Knolls, Gramercy Park, Westmont, Vermont Vista, Broadway-Manchester, Green Meadows, Watts, Athens, Willowbrook, West Rancho Dominguez and Walnut Park.
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The company plans four tiers of service, with equal speeds for uploads and downloads: $65 per month for 500 Mbps, $75 for 1 gigabyte per second, $85 for 2 Gbps, and $99 for small business connections. Installation and a router will be included, WeLink CEO Luke Langford said.
Qualifying homes will receive a $40 per month discount on residential tiers. The initial plan is to use the same eligibility requirement used by the federal government for the Affordable Connectivity Program: families earning up to 200% of the federal poverty level, which is $30,120 for an individual or $62,400 for a family of four. If the federal program is expanded, qualified families would be able to receive WeLink service at no cost.
If the program is not expanded, WeLink and the county will be coming up with another metric, Langford said, adding that his company is comfortable offering the discounts under the current terms.
The contract requires WeLink to provide a discounted service to 50,000 households. Sasaki said the county would be thrilled if enough homes signed up for the $25 monthly service; if there is even more demand, he said, the county will look for ways to support it.
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Surveys show that low-income families are less likely to have a home internet connection not because the service is not available, but mainly because it is not affordable. Other problems include not owning a computer or knowing how to use one, as well as a lack of awareness of programs that help users overcome these obstacles.
Sasaki said the county plans to address those issues with programs to provide free laptops and technical assistance from “digital navigators” in the communities served.
It was not an express goal of the community broadband program to encourage more competition among internet providers, but that is happening with the deployment of WeLink. And if Spectrum and AT&T lower their prices in response, Sasaki and Langford said, that’s another way the project will benefit targeted communities.
WeLink uses unlicensed spectrum in the 60 gigahertz frequency band, which means it does not need to obtain licenses for the airwaves or tear up streets for new fiber optic lines. It will also design the network in a way that reduces the number of antennas needed to carry data.
Those steps should speed up construction of the network, Langford said. But WeLink still needs to make deals to install its antennas on rooftops, lights and street poles, he said, as well as use the fiber optic lines that will connect its network to the internet.
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Langford said he expects to have service available to a “moderate” number of customers by the end of the year, with most of the deployment going live in 2025 and beyond. Those interested in the service can sign up for updates on the WeLink website.
The very high frequencies used by WeLink can transmit huge amounts of data, but unlike the lower frequencies used by radio stations and mobile phones, they do not travel well through walls. Langford said WeLink installers will use new cables or existing building wiring to connect the rooftop antennas to routers inside customers’ homes and businesses.
Founded in 2018, WeLink has built networks that serve parts of Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, Langford said.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
