Plan To Blanket County With Internet Service Involves MUSD Partnership

Cell Towers in South Mountain Park photographed Dec. 4, 2013. [file]

Pinal County supervisors on Wednesday approved building a radio network that will fill in the internet service void throughout the largely rural and mountainous county.

The proposed wireless network will include the construction of 32 towers, all under 50 feet high, on properties owned by the county and school districts within the region including two districts serving Maricopa.

It allows the location of radios on existing towers.

“This project would allow Maricopa Unified School District students to have access to reliable network service anywhere in Pinal County, whether at home, school, or even on the bus,” MUSD spokesperson Mishell Terry said Friday. 

MUSD and Stanfield Elementary School District are among the districts to benefit from the radio network system.

The Covid-related lockdown period highlighted the inadequacies and county leader asked staff to obtain grant funding, county officials said.

In June 2021, the Pinal County Superintendent’s Office completed a $34 million, 320-plus-mile fiber network connecting to schools and libraries countywide using federal funding.

This “mid-mile” fiber network has excess capacity beyond what is needed by the schools and libraries.

Pinal County obtained additional federal funds to build a dedicated wireless network to solve unmet needs by installing additional infrastructure and towers to deliver service for the so-called “final mile,” brining wireless internet where fiber networks cannot reach.

The federal funding obtained consists of four federal funding allocations totaling $4 million, with the remaining federal dollars coming from American Rescue Plan Act state and local fiscal recovery funds.

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