Mayor, Council members announce plan to provide free internet throughout city

Recorded live at 10:00am, May 21, 2020

The Sacramento City Council is expected to vote Tuesday, May 26 to use $550,000 in federal stimulus money to help close the digital divide in Sacramento. The City will partner with Comcast to provide free internet for the next six months to approximately 10,000 low-income households, along with 1,000 low-cost computers.

The program will serve low-income families, seniors and individuals. It will help ensure that all schoolchildren in Sacramento can participate in distance learning and online enrichment. The City will work with community-based organizations to connect individuals and households in immediate need of secure access to the internet, equipment, and necessary knowledge to participate digitally.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg joined Council colleagues and elected officials from local school boards to announce the program. You can watch it here: https://engagesac.org/blog-civic-engagement/2020/5/20/ny47fy9j4zh4xoscbn6v1r3lxeuz13

Thursday’s announcement builds on a commitment made earlier this month by Comcast, the Sacramento City Unified School District and Mayor Steinberg’s Office to extend free internet to needy students in the district for six months. The $550,000 expenditure scheduled for a vote Tuesday will pay for the City’s participation in that partnership and also allow free Comcast service to reach qualified people of all ages. It will connect students in all of the city’s school districts, including Natomas and Twin Rivers.

The expenditure would be one of the first approved by the Council from the $89-million federal stimulus check received by the City last month. The money will be used to cover the approximately $9.95 a month Comcast charges for its deeply discounted Internet Essentials service. Learn more here about Internet Essentials and who qualifies for the service.

“Let this be the day when Sacramento made a commitment to ending the digital divide,” said Mayor Darrell Steinberg. “This is one of the most crucial things we can do to rebuild our economy after Covid-19. Our residents need to be able to access learning and job training resources, and our most disadvantaged students can’t be left behind as their peers continue learning online.”

Mayor Pro Tem Angelique Ashby, who represents Natomas, said: “Making sure every household in Sacramento has reliable digital access during this time and into the future is a top tier concern. Staying connected and informed through online resources is no longer a matter of convenience. It is a matter of survival. Today we take the first big step towards ending digital inequity across our city."

Since 2011, more than 8 million low-income Americans have been connected to the Internet at home through Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, 90 percent of whom were not connected to the Internet at home until they signed up through Internet Essentials. This includes more than one million residents across California, which is the number one state in terms of overall participation in the program. Nearly 165,000 low-income individuals have been connected in the greater Sacramento area. 

Internet Essentials has an integrated, wrap-around design that addresses each of the three major barriers to broadband adoption that research has identified. These include: a lack of digital literacy skills, lack of awareness of the relevance of the Internet to everyday life needs, and fear of the Internet; the lack of a computer; and cost of internet service. The program is structured as a partnership between Comcast and tens of thousands of school districts, libraries, elected officials, and nonprofit community partners. For more information, or to apply for the program in seven different languages, please visit www.internetessentials.com or call 1-855-846-8376. Spanish-only speakers can also call 1-855-765-6995.