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Dallas Has A Plan To Expand Broadband To Households In Need & They Want To Hear From You

Closeup of Wireless Router With blurred little using laptop in the background
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City and school district leaders commissioned the plan in late 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the community's need for high-speed broadband internet access.

The City of Dallas and the Dallas Independent School District are looking for feedback on study aiming to make high speed internet accessible and equitable for all Dallasites.

The city and Dallas ISD have a plan to extend internet access to parts of the city and school district that get no or little service now. That’s hundreds of thousands of people.

If you're a Dallas resident or DISD parent:
Click here to share your thoughts on the plan.

The deadline to submit comments is Aug. 6.

The city and school district propose spending $13.5 million to build a 100-mile fiber backbone that would cost $ 1 million a year to maintain.

The goal of the investment is help students learning at home and to created more opportunities to help students who are behind catch up, especially given pandemic learning losses.

The report says an even bigger fiber backbone could reach even more unserved homes, but would cost up to $50 million.

Take a look at a summary of the report below.

ReadTheFullReport

Got a tip? Email Reporter Bill Zeeble at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @bzeeble.

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Bill Zeeble has been a full-time reporter at KERA since 1992, covering everything from medicine to the Mavericks and education to environmental issues.