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Construction is underway on a broadband project that will connect high-speed internet to 24 city halls \u2014 and eventually, consumers \u2014 in southeast L.A., an area historically at the center of the region\u2019s digital divide<\/a>.<\/p>\n Officials broke ground on the project in Compton this week, marking the beginning of five phases of construction that will eventually span 125 miles through dozens of cities, including Huntington Park, Bellflower and Downey.<\/p>\n The $104 million network will be paid for with grants from the California Department of Technology\u2019s middle mile broadband initiative and the California Public Utilities Commission\u2019s last mile federal funding account.<\/p>\n Hector de la Torre, executive director of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, said this level of investment is out of the ordinary for southeast L.A. (The Gateway Cities Council of Governments<\/a> is a grouping of local governments in southern and southeastern L.A. County that coordinates some services.)<\/p>\n \u201cOn average, most of us get at best one gigabyte per second of speed with incumbent providers. This will be 10 gigabytes per second,\u201d De la Torre said. \u201cThis is the best and, in our communities, we’re not used to getting the best. We’re used to getting what’s left.\u201d<\/p>\n The pandemic exposed a dire need for higher quality internet access in these communities, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we saw during COVID, for example, was kids going to McDonald’s and sitting in the parking lot or outside doing their homework because they didn’t have access to quality internet at home, both because of accessibility and cost,\u201d De la Torre said. \u201cThis is a step in the right direction, to bring it into the communities.\u201d<\/p>\n How it works<\/p>\n The fiber optic cables will connect through 24 city halls throughout southeast L.A.. Once completed, each local government will be responsible for how to get that high-quality internet into the community.<\/p>\n The lines will be directly connected to the state\u2019s Middle Mile Broadband Network<\/a>, a $5 billion initiative<\/a> to install fiber optic cable throughout the state and improve access to quality internet. The project is aimed at areas that have no internet or slow connections.<\/p>\n \u201cThe next step would be to do a competitive bid to find an internet service provider that can light up the fiber optic cable and provide that internet access. We will be doing that later this year,\u201d De la Torre said.<\/p>\n The cost to the consumer will be low, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd this isn’t hypothetical. The South Bay Council of Governments \u2026 they’ve done this already,\u201d De la Torres said. \u201cAnd they have found higher speeds at much less cost.\u201d<\/p>\n Phase 2 of construction is expected to begin next month. Soon, all five phases will be happening simultaneously to complete the project by December 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keep up with LAist. If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[717,716,6081,712,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-17895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-access","9":"tag-broadband","10":"tag-compton","11":"tag-internet","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114752976588569845","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}