MiFi is filling in for students where broadband doesn't reach in Sumter

Sumter senators are pleased with bill for broadband expansion

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The State Department of Education started a mobile hotspot initiative during the summer to allow all students to take part in virtual learning at home this fall, even if they don't have high-speed internet access.

Arpad Jonas, executive director of Information Systems and Technology with Sumter School District, spoke Friday about MiFi device distribution by district staff to families of students without internet access to ensure home-based virtual instruction could still go on.

After the state Department of Education realized in the summer that the COVID-19 pandemic wasn't going away and virtual learning would still be necessary, getting out a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot to school districts became a top priority for the agency, Jonas said.

Sumter has distributed about 500 MiFi devices to families of students who meet designated criteria, he said. Those requirements include households being below 250% of the federal poverty level and without internet service.

Distribution has been about 80% to residents in outlying rural areas of the county and roughly 20% to families in the city.

The mobile hotspots have eliminated the need now for the district to send out buses to the rural communities to offer Wi-Fi hotspots, he said. The goal is to get a MiFi to every student's house whose family qualifies and is in need.

"Now, we won't need the buses," Jonas said, "because it's more convenient to be in your house and do your homework and not driving in a car and sitting near a bus to get connection to do your work."

Regarding the state General Assembly recently passing legislation to provide broadband expansion throughout the state - even to smaller, more rural communities - Jonas said it could be a big benefit.

"Now, the expansion may change things," he said. "This may make a big difference and help with this, but in the past, these companies have made business decisions because they couldn't recover the investment in the more rural areas."

The broadband expansion bill passed on the last day of the legislative session.

Sumter County's delegation from the state Senate spoke Friday on the bill that was resurrected a few weeks ago near the end of a most unusual 2020 session, given the COVID-19 pandemic.

State Sens. Thomas McElveen, D-Sumter, and Kevin Johnson, D-Manning, both said as COVID-19 pushed schools into the virtual world in March and increased the use of telehealth services by health professionals, the broadband access divide in South Carolina became even more apparent.

Since the dawn of the internet in the 1990s, cities and richer areas have typically been characterized as having good internet access, with poorer, less-populated areas more likely to go without high-speed internet.

The bill passed unanimously in both chambers and was immediately signed by Gov. Henry McMaster, and it will now give incentives to small power companies and cooperatives to let internet providers run their service alongside electric lines.

In the past, internet providers have had to make financial decisions about whether to extend costly fiber cables into remote areas that are sparsely populated.

Some 650,000 of the 5 million people in the state don't have access to broadband internet, officials have said.

Johnson said the new legislation is "a win for everybody" in South Carolina.

"I have always said, 'This is 2020, and there's just not an excuse for people to not have access,'" he said. "The goal is to make sure that it's readily available for everybody. I think we will get there. I think it is something everybody wanted to do, wanted to see happen, but we just had to come up with a mechanism; and, so, this will do it for us."

Both senators said it will help with both education and health care.

Increased accessibility to broadband decreases the need for mobile hotspot locations.

McElveen said he was pleased the bill had overwhelming support.

"We've known there have been broadband issues for a while in South Carolina," he said. "I represent some places in Lee County, in Sumter County and even Kershaw County that have those challenges. So, hopefully that will be less of a challenge for those folks who live in those areas in the coming months and years."