Long Beach wants to offer free Wi-Fi in public places by 2027

The city of Long Beach wants to get more people online by offering free Wi-Fi in more than 100 publicly-owned spaces.

Officials say it’s part of a larger plan to make the internet more accessible and affordable — and to save about $400,000 per year in internet bills.

The city is spending $17 million to build its own fiber-optic backbone network by 2027. That will allow it to connect public places like parks, health centers and other facilities to reliable, high-speed broadband, rather than pay companies like Spectrum or Frontier for that service.

But the idea is to increase competition in the local broadband market, not to cut ties with major telecom giants.

Lower prices

“We are going to lease that conduit space to internet service providers to hopefully lower the cost of them going and getting into our market or reaching more households,” said Lea Eriksen, director of technology and innovation and chief information officer for Long Beach.

In other words, the city wants to offset some of its investment by charging internet companies a fee to plug into its fiber network in places where they don’t already have infrastructure. Officials hope that will encourage private companies to bring service to people’s homes at a more reasonable price since they would have saved on earlier construction costs.

The city already offers free public Wi-Fi in 24 of its public parks and is working to connect another location in the Ramona Park neighborhood. It doesn’t have the capacity to serve residential areas on its own just yet, but could expand services once the network is completed.

The digital divide

The program also aims to help older adults and immigrant communities, who have struggled to keep up with the “digital transformation" of city services that happened during the pandemic.

“Signing up for Medicare, renewing your car registration via the DMV… all of these things have gone digital and people are being left behind by that,” said Estefania Zavala, the city’s digital equity and economic inclusion officer.

In Long Beach, an estimated 5% of households lacked a broadband subscription in 2022, down from 8% in 2019. But despite high rates of connection, many residents still struggle to pay for service, according to Zavala.

“The issue is not so much connectivity, but affordability, which I don't think is surprising,” she said. "There are some spaces where there just really isn't high speed and affordable internet.”

In 2020, the city opened a hotline to connect residents to low-cost internet plans and digital skills training. It has a team of “digital inclusion navigators” who direct people to free and low-cost internet services, computers and more.

Long Beach officials also put together a 22-page digital inclusion resource guide to help residents find free public Wi-Fi and other library resources, as well as free digital skills training, job resources and E-waste removal. The guide is available in four languages: English and Spanish, Tagalog and Khmer.

Timeline

After some delays, construction is expected to begin in 2025. Hugo Gil, the city’s infrastructure systems officer, said the team still has to finalize design plans before requesting bids from companies who want to build the network.

Services could be available to the public by 2027.