Equity Is a Key Focus for Oakland Broadband Work

Broadband expansion in Oakland is aimed at improving the lives of some of the city’s most vulnerable populations.

An effort that began during the COVID-19 pandemic to get students online “has grown into a citywide movement to advance digital equity, not only as an educational access issue but as an economic, health, civic and moral imperative for all Oaklanders,” said Patrick Messac, director of OaklandUndivided, a nonprofit broadband advocacy group dedicated to closing the digital divide.

“We are working in partnership toward a common cause,” Messac said during an Oct. 3 press event to call attention to several initiatives taking root in Oakland to improve broadband infrastructure for the Bay Area city and to ensure that students, the elderly and lower-income residents are not left on the digital sidelines.

For example, the Oakland Public Education Fund is investing $1 million into a Student Connectivity Fund for the Oakland Unified School District to ensure access to devices, Internet connections and “culturally responsive” tech support.

“We know that the digital divide is a really huge part of our kids being able to learn, grow and thrive and be part of the 21st century economy,” Alexandria Medina, executive director of the Oakland Public Education Fund, said during the event.

Other projects include $2.5 million allocated by the Oakland Housing Authority for the OHA Free Internet Initiative through at least 2027, according to city officials. OHA provides free high-speed Wi-Fi to people living in public housing.

“We’re going to have over 3,000 folks, funded through federal subsidy, with free Wi-Fi. So not just our young scholars, but our secondary young scholars, our elders,” said Patricia Wells, OHA executive director.

Perhaps one of the biggest steps being taken is by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which awarded a $15 million last-mile grant to the city for broadband infrastructure projects, connecting 14 community institutions, nine public safety buildings and numerous households.

“I think that speaks to not just the power and impact of the project, but all the work that’s gone before it that we’re talking about celebrating here. That this didn’t happen overnight,” said Tony Batalla, the city’s chief information officer and director of its Information Technology Department. The department was the lead applicant for the CPUC grant.

The project, Oakland Connect, will bring 27 OHA facilities and more than 2,500 units online with high-speed fiber, with the housing authority managing the Internet service.

“You have municipal government doing the infrastructure, and then the partners doing the service,” Batalla said, “and so, together that shows how a partnership can work, between infrastructure and service delivery.”

This article first appeared in Government Technology, sister publication to Industry Insider — California.