Lindsay Unified's Community Wi-Fi

Overview

Lindsay Unified School District leaders wanted to provide extended learning time, but being located in a rural setting, realized that providing Learners Internet access outside of school would have to be a community solution. They launched a multi-year project that installed nine distribution towers across the district, and placed hundreds of hotspots on people’s homes to provide free, filtered coverage for all Learners. In addition, the district is installing cell towers to provide “Mi-Fi”-enabled devices, which work in a similar fashion to cellular data. While both approaches overlap in coverage, it helps ensure everyone has the best possible access as the Wi-Fi has higher speeds but the Mi-Fi has a greater reach. To date, over 75% of Learners have access to the community Wi-Fi, a number they hoped to grow to 100% by fall 2016.

In 2017, Lindsay posted this update on the project:

The LUSD Community Wi-Fi Project has grown 3X initial projections! We thank our community for all your support and rely heavily on all feedback we're able to receive.