The San Antonio City Council already expected SouthStar Communities to breathe new life into 600 acres near Texas A&M University’s Southside campus when it approved a development deal in November 2019. Now, with the first apartments and homes being built this year, Southstar Communities is also tapping into existing infrastructure to help bridge the Southside’s digital divide.
As? The New Braunfels-based developer will provide accessible, affordable internet to the community of VIDA San Antonio, which will have 4,000 residential units including single family homes for sale and rent, condos, duplexes, townhomes and student housing. Homes are managed by national homebuilders such as Lennar, Highland Homes and Perry Homes.
The first residential units are currently in the works at VIDA San Antonio.
Courtesy of SouthStar CommunitiesAccording to Gretchen Howell, SouthStar’s senior vice president of community development, this will be accomplished through the use of a private company that specializes in microtrenchment, which installs 10 gigabytes of fiber into existing trenches. This makes for more efficiency and less digging. Such high gigabyte capacity is highly erratic in a residential area, Howell says.
The infrastructure could be used for something as ambitious as autonomous vehicles, or simply to provide higher bandwidth for VIDA’s students and residents.
“We look at it and say, ‘Why not deliver this now when we could?'” Howell says. “Knowing that we will likely have a need sooner than we imagined.”
This is what VIDA San Antonio will look like when it is finished.
Courtesy of SouthStar CommunitiesThe need for internet access on the Southside, where VIDA is being built, is high as 30% of homes in the area are not connected, according to SA Digital Connects. The group is working to bring access to these households across Bexar County by 2025. It does so in part by enrolling these households in the federal Affordable Connectivity program, which offers monthly rebates for Internet service.
Howell says VIDA residents will have better access to higher capacity with less lag and dilution because they are on their own network. She says that when these residents move in, they can connect for $40 a month for 1 gigabyte of upload and download speeds. An ISP like AT&T Fiber offers these speeds for $80 a month, according to AT&T’s website.
VIDA hopes to welcome the first residents soon.
Courtesy of SouthStar Communities“I think there’s something powerful about how the private sector can play a role in how we create a broader digital inclusion effort in San Antonio,” Howell says.
SouthStar already has another community on the Southside called Mission Del Lago. It also has three others in New Braunfels, including Vintage Oaks, The Crossings and the recently announced Mayfair.
#community #San #Antonio #Southside #offers #affordable #internet Source
