Monday, August 12, 2019

If Buffalo can...

I appear to be on a bit of a theme here on "why can't we?" but if the Buffalo Public Schools have managed to overcome the complications around providing internet access to students in their neighborhoods, surely Worcester could?
The two neighborhoods were specifically targeted, because they are in what’s referred to as “digital deserts” – lower-income neighborhoods where more than half of all households don’t have home internet or cellular service.
In this case, HarpData would, basically, situate wireless antennas atop the eight district schools and other buildings near them to extend the district’s Wi-Fi signal into the neighborhoods...
Their signal would reach as many as 5,500 students who live inside a two-mile radius of one of the eight schools. Students then would be able to use their passwords to log on at home the same as they would at school.
The concern I have in the past heard in Worcester (and note that this is a broadband rather than device issue) is that federal funding requires particular filters. I've noticed that Worcester already chooses to apply that requirement more broadly than other districts (banning access more widely); it would seem that Buffalo is simply applying their own filter to the service offered.

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