Some of the only ways to communicate during the pandemic were through cellphones or online, but not everyone in Santa Barbara County has access to cell coverage and internet service.
The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash experienced a double whammy with poor cell service and no internet access, said Sam Cohen, government and legal specialist for the tribe.
“The Santa Ynez Indian Reservation is [on] a river bed. As a result, all of the houses are built on the banks of the river, and there’s very little line of sight for the internet. … Anyone who needs to use the internet for a Zoom meeting, they are forced to go to the tribal hall and use a conference room to get internet service,” Cohen said. “The best example is Tribal Chairman Kenneth Khan cannot do Zoom meetings from his house, and has to go to the Tribal Administration Building or go off reservation in order to log into the internet.”
A lack of internet also complicated telemedicine opportunities, remote learning, and general socialization, he continued.
“The tribal members are uniquely at risk. They have lots of health issues and many of them are older. Two-thirds are over 50, and due to the lack of housing on the reservation, we have lots of people living in multi-generational housing situations. People really were afraid and tried to limit their exposure to other people as much as possible, which really isolated them,” Cohen said.
The pandemic has yet to end, and internet and cell connectivity remain major issues. To solve this, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash formed a partnership with the EconAlliance—a cross-industry alliance that advocates for Northern Santa Barbara County communities—along with the Broadband Consortium of the Pacific Coast (nonprofit that works to create a robust broadband infrastructure across the state), and the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) to create a regional, strategic plan to expand high speed and quality internet access to all Santa Barbara County residents.
Vicki Conner, a previous EconAlliance leader, said internet expansion discussions began in 2013 when they identified broadband as a key economic development, or asset that was needed in the communities. Landspeed—a Southern and Central California technology and services team—helped the alliance conduct preliminary broadband speed testing, Conner said.
The testing and research helped Conner and her team discover the need for a broadband ring—a loop connecting Santa Barbara County through infrastructure providing high speed internet access with technologies like fiber-optic cables.
“We need some redundancy and resilience in the network. That [testing] was the catalyst of our efforts in North County because we had more specifics to look at,” Conner recalled.
In 2016, the Broadband Consortium conducted a further broadband analysis, and gave Santa Barbara County a D-minus. Currently there are two telephone companies and four cable companies providing broadband for the region, not nearly enough to serve all of the county, Conner said.
“People need broadband,” she said. “They can’t go with the old megabytes per second. We learned from the Chumash experience—and serving individual areas like Los Alamos—[that] people have quite different needs and different experiences.”
The alliance’s partnership with the Broadband Consortium enabled them to further improve broadband with the goal of making it universal in everyone’s homes, Consortium President Bill Simmons said. Historically, there were many discussions about the fiber cables that exist between communities, but the last 18 months sped up the conversation, Simmons said.
“COVID’s changed everything. It was like putting lighter fluid on a fire,” he said. “We ended up realizing through COVID that broadband affects everyone; you just need broadband, and we didn’t have the capacity.”
Part of the capacity issues stem from historical funding with a lot of state and federal dollars financing only a certain level of service—usually much lower than what’s needed today, Simmons said.
“Everyone needs gigabyte service, not something we would have known a few years ago because utilization wasn’t as advanced as it is today. A lot of the funding sources don’t provide money to the level of service that’s needed today,” he added. “We want broadband in everyone’s house; a fourth utility throughout the county.”
Creating that level of service requires local government entities—the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and city councils—to help fund broadband expansion. EconAlliance and the consortium presented the regional plan to the Board of Supervisors during the Sept. 19 meeting, 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann said.
“After COVID, we saw that 1 in 4 households don’t have access to broadband. … The demand is leaping exponentially, and we have to provide a means to make that possible,” Hartmann said
California allocated $6 billion statewide, and at the federal level, the Biden administration invested $65 billion to get improved broadband because of its importance for health care, education, and economic participation, she continued.
“There’s nothing like money on the table that gets people to work together earnestly. With more people working at home than ever, the need for broadband internet access is acute—particularly in North County. With all this funding coming through, we want to be well poised to receive that funding,” Hartmann said.
The county allocated $200,000 toward the regional plan, and SBCAG met with all eight cities to discuss support for the plan, SBCAG Public Information Manager Lauren Bianchi Klemann said.
“Internet and getting online is no longer a consumer choice. The digital divide in our communities prevents our residents [from] accessing education and community engagement,” Bianchi Klemann said. “SBCAG begins that regional dialogue across jurisdictional boundaries to get involved, and then identifies priority projects to get that funding for projects available.”
All eight of the county’s cities supported participating in the process, meaning SBCAG will be able to do a deep dive and further assess the cities’ needs, she added.
“We want to know what the pulse is of the cities and the priority needs, not only access to infrastructure to broadband and the fiber, but also affordability within each of the cities,” she said.
City funding will depend on each city’s population and how much it can afford to contribute to the broadband projects. Santa Maria—for example—has a large population but was concerned about the amount it could pay for broadband, Bianchi Klemann said.
“A component of the funding will be part of the strategic plan. The cities will be able to use this strategic plan to find their own funding for projects. We are facilitating all this great work and creating a cohesive voice for our county,” she said.
The strategic plan will be ready in 2022, and SBCAG hopes to present it to the county and cities by next fall.
“We’re just really excited. I think it’s so notable how this one topic has really been able to bring communities and leaders together. You have decision makers in north and south counties expressing the need—and that is the need for better quality and access to broadband within their communities. Our economy is dependent on high speed internet access, and this one issue is allowing us to come together and find solutions,” Bianchi Klemann said.
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 16-23, 2021.