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There are roughly 325,000 households without internet in LA County, but one county leader said subsidies won’t solve the problem.
By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities
Subsidies like the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) are unaffordable and set communities up for failure, according to Eric Sasaki, the manager of major programs at L.A. County’s internal services department.
Sasaki, who gave a keynote address at the second day of Broadband Communities Summit West, in San Diego, said subsidies are simply unreliable and set communities up for failure.
“In the current model, we will set up our communities for failure when those subsidies go away,” Sasaki said. “And we have lots of households that fall off the cliff that had service and now they can’t afford service.”
To address the digital divide in Los Angeles County, Sasaki said the county has chosen another path.
“We were very flexible in terms of how we approached our model,” Sasaki said.
Sasaki, who runs Los Angeles County’s community broadband initiative, said the track record of subsidies like the ACP provided lessons to learn from.
LA County’s community broadband initiative, instead, was designed to accelerate digital equity by using public-private partnerships that can provide low-cost home internet access in areas where more than 20 percent of homes are without a broadband internet subscription.
The initiative has announced projects in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, encompassing over 25 square miles of land area and over 84,000 housing units.
Another announced project, in South Los Angeles, will encompass over 43 square miles and will cover an area with over 182,000 housing units, Sasaki said.
For those projects, the county has partnered with WeLink to provide low-cost plans ranging from $25 per month for up to 500 Mbps symmetrical service, to $45 per month for 2,000 Mbps service (2 Gig).
In addition, Sasaki said the plans offered by WeLink will include no credit checks, no required cash deposits, fixed prices until Sept. 2027, unlimited data, free professional installation, no auto-pay requirements, and no paperless billing requirements.
“We have first ensured that we have a qualified bench of companies that want to work with us in a public private partnership model,” he said.
Sasaki said the county will continue accepting requests for statements of qualification until September 2027. He said there are currently 11 internet service providers (ISPs) that have expressed interest, ranging from very large providers to small companies.
In the requirements for applicants, the county included requirements around pricing and language access, to make sure residents can sign up for service in their language of choice.
According to Sasaki, over a dozen languages will be supported in some way.
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