NMTechWorks
  • NM TechWorks
    • Tech Stats >
      • Tech Triviia
    • Tech Task Force >
      • Santa Fe Public Schools
    • National IT Standards
    • Tech Women of New Mexico >
      • NCWIT Aspirations
    • By Regions >
      • Regional Chambers of Commerce
      • Maker Spaces
      • Business Incubators
      • Organizations
      • Los Alamos >
        • Project Y Los Alamos
        • Everyone Does IT
    • TechHire >
      • TechHire Santa Fe & Northern NM
      • TechHire Albuquerque
    • Internet Society - NM Chapter >
      • ISOC 25th Anniversary
      • Indigenous Connectivity Summit 2017
    • Community Learning Network
    • National Center for Women & IT
    • Counselors for Computing
    • Support
  • Tech Basics
    • Digital Literacy
    • CODING >
      • CODING LANGUAGES >
        • CODING BASICS
      • CODING OPTIONS
      • LEARN CODING
    • Cyber Security
    • Drones
    • Blockchain
    • Gaming >
      • Game Development >
        • Gamestar Mechanic
      • Never Alone >
        • Eline Media Event
      • Thunderbird Strike
    • Internet
    • InternetofThings
    • Robotics
    • Computational Thinking
    • Computer Science
  • Awesome Opportunities
    • Make A Website
    • Social Media Workshop
    • Business Boost
    • Media Mavericks
    • Youth Media Program
    • Youth Ambassadors >
      • Survey
    • Opportunity Zones
    • Teeniors
    • New! Pre-Boomerang Initiative
    • Tech AIM >
      • Interns and Associates 2018
      • Social Media Interns
    • Congressional App Challenge >
      • Congressional App Challenge 2019
      • Congressional App Challenge 2018
    • APP Awards & Showcase >
      • New Mexico APPS
      • Local App Project
  • Events
    • Film Festivals
    • Tech MeetUps
    • 2020 Events
    • 2019 Events >
      • Digital Learning Conference
      • Women In Tech Celebration
      • The Dent Conference
      • Business Expo APR 2019
      • SFCC PROTEC
      • STEM Studio 2019
      • Summer Camps - Summer of Tech 2019
      • StartUp Generation
      • Human Rights Day Camp
      • Flow Science Annual Open House
      • Close It Summit 2019 >
        • Shift Happens 2
      • New Collar Workforce Summit
      • 2019 Governor's STEM Challenge
      • Hour of Code 2019
    • 2018 Events >
      • Business Expo APR 2018
      • Eline Media Event
      • CS PD Week for Teachers
      • Summer Camps - Summer of Tech 2018
      • Tech Update
      • SFCC PROTEC
      • Regional Tech Exchange
      • Hour of Code 2018
      • Coding Film 2018 >
        • Coding Video Call for Submissions
        • Student Film Crew
    • 2017 Events >
      • Indigenous Connectivity Summit 2017 >
        • ICS 2017 Speakers
        • ICS 2017 Agenda
        • ICS 2017 Photos
      • Tech Speaker Series
      • Summer of Tech 2017
      • Hour of Code 2017
    • 2016 Events >
      • Career Academy
      • Hour of Code 2016
  • Learn
    • AI Artificial Intelligence
    • GIS >
      • STEM Mapping
    • Seniors Guide to Online Safety
    • Hour of Code
    • Workshops
    • Libraries
    • CS Education >
      • Cultivating Coders
      • Dev-Catalyst >
        • Dev-Catalyst Teachers
    • Bootcamps >
      • Deep Dive Coding >
        • Web Development
        • Java Android
        • Digital Media
    • Learn Coding Online
    • College >
      • IAIA Cinematic Arts and Tech
      • SFCC & SFI Film Degrees
      • SFCC Social Media Specialist
      • NNMC IET
    • For Teachers >
      • CS Professional Development Week
      • Dev-Catalyst
      • CS First - Google
      • Professional Development
      • Expanding Your Horizions
      • Career Academy
      • CS Fundamentals
      • CS for All
      • code.org
      • Day of Cyber
      • Girls of Energy
      • Girls Who Code
      • TechGirlz
      • Hour of Code in NM
      • ConnectedED
      • Community Speakers
      • Industry Chats
      • Northern NM STEM Mentorship Collaborative
      • Supercomputing Challenge
      • Future City
      • RoboRAVE
      • STEM Video Game Challenge >
        • Make Games
      • Upward Bound
      • Video Bank
  • Careers
    • Careers with Code
    • EMTech Creatives Santa Fe >
      • Zippy Guerin
      • Melanie Lenci
      • Lauren Henriksen
      • Russel Wilie
      • Myrriah Tomar
      • Acacia Carr
      • JC Ramirez
      • Oriana Cottrell
    • Video Bank
    • Tech Business Directory
    • Tech Career Resources
    • Tech Career Possibilities
  • Storm Cloud Media
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Interns and Vistas
  • In the News

Tech Matters...

Santa Fe City Council approves free Wi-Fi hot spots

2/4/2022

0 Comments

 
"Free Wi-Fi will soon be available at several locations across Santa Fe despite reservations about the project from some city councilors who ended up voting for it anyway.

After a nearly 11/2 hour discussion Wednesday, Mayor Alan Webber and the City Council unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding with Santa Fe Public Schools for the city to install Wi-Fi hot spots at several school campuses. The free Wi-Fi on school grounds is primarily intended for students who have switched to online learning in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic but who have limited or no internet access.
Though not part of the agreement with the school district, the city also plans to install Wi-Fi hot spots at several city-owned buildings that will be available for the public to log into, too.

“In combination with city-owned sites, the selected school locations will allow for more areas of the city to have hotspots near at hand,” Sean Moody, the city’s telecommunications architect, wrote in a memo to the council.
Some city councilors, including Michael Garcia, JoAnne Vigil Coppler and Renee Villarreal, pushed for a “timeline” to remove the infrastructure, which is only intended to be temporary. Despite their jockeying, the full council ultimately approved the agreement as originally presented. “The pandemic is our timeline,” Rich Brown, the city’s economic development director, told the governing body. “We don’t know when that’s going to end.”

The project, which will cost an estimated $90,000, has raised suspicions that it will lead to the installation of 5G cellphone technology, which still doesn’t exist in Santa Fe. But city and school officials emphasized that the hot spots are unrelated to 5G.

“That’s still aspirational for Santa Fe,” Moody said in a telephone interview before Wednesday’s virtual council meeting. “None of the providers have it here. Certainly, it’s not part of our project whatsoever. Our project doesn’t use it, and it doesn’t make it.”

Councilor Signe Lindell said the council received numerous emails about the project from concerned residents, some of which left her “dumbfounded.”
“There was one thing that stood out in those emails that I’m compelled to say out loud, and that’s the number of people that said in emails that they didn’t believe there were people in this town that don’t have internet access,” she said. “I was shocked by that. It tells me that there’s some folks who have no idea how much some of our fellow citizens are struggling.”

Tom Ryan, the school district’s chief information and strategy officer, said the free Wi-Fi on school campuses is designed to help students “get to their educational resources” as well as access general information about what’s happening in the world.
​

“We have about 550 kids that said that they need internet access,” Ryan said. “We also have teachers, some of which their spouse has lost their job due to the closing of businesses, etcetera, that can’t afford or can no longer afford internet.”
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    Author

    New Mexico TechWorks is a community coalition to support New Mexico Emergent Media and Technologies and implement the White House TechHire initiative. TechHire is a multi-sector effort to give Americans pathways to well-paying technology jobs. 

    Archives

    February 2022
    February 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

      Join Our Mailing List

    Submit

New Mexico TechWorks is an initiative launched in partnership with the non-profit CommUNITY Learning Network (CLN) and a wide range of community advocates and supporters.
info@nmtechworks.com
© COPYRIGHT 2016  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Photo used under Creative Commons from garryknight
  • NM TechWorks
    • Tech Stats >
      • Tech Triviia
    • Tech Task Force >
      • Santa Fe Public Schools
    • National IT Standards
    • Tech Women of New Mexico >
      • NCWIT Aspirations
    • By Regions >
      • Regional Chambers of Commerce
      • Maker Spaces
      • Business Incubators
      • Organizations
      • Los Alamos >
        • Project Y Los Alamos
        • Everyone Does IT
    • TechHire >
      • TechHire Santa Fe & Northern NM
      • TechHire Albuquerque
    • Internet Society - NM Chapter >
      • ISOC 25th Anniversary
      • Indigenous Connectivity Summit 2017
    • Community Learning Network
    • National Center for Women & IT
    • Counselors for Computing
    • Support
  • Tech Basics
    • Digital Literacy
    • CODING >
      • CODING LANGUAGES >
        • CODING BASICS
      • CODING OPTIONS
      • LEARN CODING
    • Cyber Security
    • Drones
    • Blockchain
    • Gaming >
      • Game Development >
        • Gamestar Mechanic
      • Never Alone >
        • Eline Media Event
      • Thunderbird Strike
    • Internet
    • InternetofThings
    • Robotics
    • Computational Thinking
    • Computer Science
  • Awesome Opportunities
    • Make A Website
    • Social Media Workshop
    • Business Boost
    • Media Mavericks
    • Youth Media Program
    • Youth Ambassadors >
      • Survey
    • Opportunity Zones
    • Teeniors
    • New! Pre-Boomerang Initiative
    • Tech AIM >
      • Interns and Associates 2018
      • Social Media Interns
    • Congressional App Challenge >
      • Congressional App Challenge 2019
      • Congressional App Challenge 2018
    • APP Awards & Showcase >
      • New Mexico APPS
      • Local App Project
  • Events
    • Film Festivals
    • Tech MeetUps
    • 2020 Events
    • 2019 Events >
      • Digital Learning Conference
      • Women In Tech Celebration
      • The Dent Conference
      • Business Expo APR 2019
      • SFCC PROTEC
      • STEM Studio 2019
      • Summer Camps - Summer of Tech 2019
      • StartUp Generation
      • Human Rights Day Camp
      • Flow Science Annual Open House
      • Close It Summit 2019 >
        • Shift Happens 2
      • New Collar Workforce Summit
      • 2019 Governor's STEM Challenge
      • Hour of Code 2019
    • 2018 Events >
      • Business Expo APR 2018
      • Eline Media Event
      • CS PD Week for Teachers
      • Summer Camps - Summer of Tech 2018
      • Tech Update
      • SFCC PROTEC
      • Regional Tech Exchange
      • Hour of Code 2018
      • Coding Film 2018 >
        • Coding Video Call for Submissions
        • Student Film Crew
    • 2017 Events >
      • Indigenous Connectivity Summit 2017 >
        • ICS 2017 Speakers
        • ICS 2017 Agenda
        • ICS 2017 Photos
      • Tech Speaker Series
      • Summer of Tech 2017
      • Hour of Code 2017
    • 2016 Events >
      • Career Academy
      • Hour of Code 2016
  • Learn
    • AI Artificial Intelligence
    • GIS >
      • STEM Mapping
    • Seniors Guide to Online Safety
    • Hour of Code
    • Workshops
    • Libraries
    • CS Education >
      • Cultivating Coders
      • Dev-Catalyst >
        • Dev-Catalyst Teachers
    • Bootcamps >
      • Deep Dive Coding >
        • Web Development
        • Java Android
        • Digital Media
    • Learn Coding Online
    • College >
      • IAIA Cinematic Arts and Tech
      • SFCC & SFI Film Degrees
      • SFCC Social Media Specialist
      • NNMC IET
    • For Teachers >
      • CS Professional Development Week
      • Dev-Catalyst
      • CS First - Google
      • Professional Development
      • Expanding Your Horizions
      • Career Academy
      • CS Fundamentals
      • CS for All
      • code.org
      • Day of Cyber
      • Girls of Energy
      • Girls Who Code
      • TechGirlz
      • Hour of Code in NM
      • ConnectedED
      • Community Speakers
      • Industry Chats
      • Northern NM STEM Mentorship Collaborative
      • Supercomputing Challenge
      • Future City
      • RoboRAVE
      • STEM Video Game Challenge >
        • Make Games
      • Upward Bound
      • Video Bank
  • Careers
    • Careers with Code
    • EMTech Creatives Santa Fe >
      • Zippy Guerin
      • Melanie Lenci
      • Lauren Henriksen
      • Russel Wilie
      • Myrriah Tomar
      • Acacia Carr
      • JC Ramirez
      • Oriana Cottrell
    • Video Bank
    • Tech Business Directory
    • Tech Career Resources
    • Tech Career Possibilities
  • Storm Cloud Media
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Interns and Vistas
  • In the News