Sonoma County will provide free internet service for a year to 556 low-income households, supervisors decided last week.
The program will use up to $200,000 in federal COVID-19 stimulus funds to pay for Comcast home internet subscriptions through the Sonoma County Economic Development Collaborative.
“As we learned during the pandemic, fast, reliable and affordable access to the internet is crucial for households and families,” Ethan Brown, executive director of the collaborative, said in a news release.
The subscriptions will offer upload speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and download speeds of 20 megabits per second, meeting state and federal standards, the collaborative said.
Also at its Dec. 3 meeting, the Board of Supervisors approved the use of about $2.3 million in stimulus funds for additional broadband infrastructure development in the Walsh Landing and/or Jenner areas.
The economic development organization said it has applied for a $17 million grant from the California Public Utilities Commission to expand broadband to underserved areas of unincorporated Sonoma County.