If library patrons can’t get to the internet, why not bring the internet to them?
That’s the concept behind OC Public Libraries new Wifi on Wheels pilot program, which aims to help schoolchildren and adults who lack access to a high-speed connection.
Beginning next week, library staff will drive to different neighborhoods in a county vehicle that’s outfitted with a trailer-mounted, 30-foot-tall antenna to broadcast a WiFi signal the length of three football fields.
The traveling WiFi unit — a Ford Explorer pulling a small trailer with a gas generator to power the antenna — is dubbed the “WoWmobile. Its first stops are in Midway City and Westminster. A second unit is expected to be ready in the next few weeks to extend the WiFi on Wheels program to other locations in Stanton, La Habra, La Palma, and San Juan Capistrano.
Intended to help bridge the digital divide between the haves and the have-nots, the mobile WiFi will provide broadband for up to 150 users within its 300-yard radius. The high-speed connection will make it easier for children to do schoolwork and for adults to search for jobs and handle other online business or leisure activities.
Starting on Tuesday, Oct. 27, the WiFi on Wheels vehicle will be parked for a day near DeMille Elementary in Midway City. The rest of the week, the WoWmobile will travel to four other pre-determined locations in Westminster. Weekly visits are planned at each site through November.
Library staff will be on hand to answer any questions and conduct some library services, such as registering people for library cards and checking out a limited number of WiFi hotspots or books for children and job seekers.
County Librarian Julie Quillman said the traveling WiFi is part of an ongoing project called “Internet Access Initiative: Bridging the Digital Divide.” The project, which touches the entire library system, includes the purchase of 150 WiFi hotspots for patrons to check out, with OC Public Libraries paying the tab for the data.
For people struggling to pay rent or put food on the table, the expense of high-speed internet was already prohibitive, Quillman said, and the economic imbalance has only deepened under the grip of the novel coronavirus.
With school campuses either closed or only partially re-opened, children are forced to take classes and do homework online, often competing with siblings, parents and others in their household for internet bandwidth — if they have internet access at all.
Libraries reopened in September with shorter hours and reduced capacity to serve people indoors. The new Grab & Go service offers browsing in designated areas, self check-out, and reservations for metered use of socially distanced computer stations. There’s also Curbside Pickup to check out items placed on hold.
OC Public Libraries, which operates 32 libraries, was already the county’s largest provider of free WiFi, with 2.2 million hours of use logged in 2019, Quillman said.
“Even before the pandemic, we already knew how bad it is to be on the wrong end of digital divide,” she said.
“The pandemic brought it to the forefront.”
Wheels up
The OC Public Libraries WiFi on Wheels is among recent initiatives launched in the midst of the pandemic to reach out to less privileged households where there is little or no internet access.
The nonprofit Project Hope Alliance is providing free WiFi hotspots and a wired learning center next to its Costa Mesa offices to schoolchildren living in motels. And a private company, JFK Transportation, began sending WiFi-equipped vans to neighborhoods in the Santa Ana Unified School District to boost weak signals. In normal times, JFK handles transportation to field trips and sports competitions for Santa Ana Unified schoolchildren under a contract with the district.
School districts have made an effort to equip students with laptops and hotspots needed for the distance learning dictated by COVID-19 health and safety protocols, yet internet access remains an issue in pockets of underserved communities around Southern California.
“The idea is to reach into people’s homes,” Quillman said of the WiFi on Wheels program.
In the neighborhoods the WoWmobile will visit, those homes are mostly apartment complexes. The locations were chosen by consensus, with librarians seeking input from community centers, schools and local leaders.
Even before the pandemic, Quillman said, limited broadband access was recognized as an issue for areas served by OC Public Libraries. Quillman, who has worked for local public libraries for about three decades, said that when she interviewed last year for the position of county librarian that she took over in December, Supervisor Andrew Do, whose First District encompasses some of the county’s poorest neighborhoods, specifically asked her about internet access.
“He was looking for a way to take the internet out to the community,” Quillman said.
The WiFi hot spots, purchased at a cost of $115 each, and the WoWmobile are just that, along with WiFi extenders that will be added in a year-long process to the exteriors of county libraries so that people can tap into free internet service in the near vicinity of the buildings, such as library patios, grassy areas or cars parked on the street.
Under a tight budget, it’s taken two years to get the equipment and networks in place to upgrade library WiFi signals to the 1 gig internet speed now available, Quillman said, adding that the long-term future of the mobile WiFi will depend on economics.
Money from the county’s share of federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds is helping to pay for the WiFi on Wheels pilot program. Any and all CARES Act funds allotted the county must be spent by the end of the year.
The ongoing cost of providing data is the chief expense for the library, which would have to cover that out of its own budget, Quillman said.
“That’s the issue moving forward. That’s why people don’t have high speed data at home,” she said.
“We would love to provide many, many more hotspots for people to check out, but it’s the cost of the data that prevents it.”
Test run
Technology being what it is, a small crew from OC Public Libraries headed out on Thursday, Oct. 22, to each of the first five WiFi on Wheels locations in order to scout the best place to park and set up their information table, along with testing out the range of the antenna.
In one area, there was restricted or no parking on the street. Another spot a few blocks from a school campus needed re-evaluation because of limited space for an E-Z Up canopy and the table to hold the library books and WiFi hotspots for checkout. The library planned to reach out to the schools to see if a safe area in their parking lots can be used.
At Schmitt Elementary on Trask Avenue in Westminster, Principal Orchid Rocha OK’d a spot at one end of the school lot. She came out to chat with the library crew and asked them to pose for a photo near their setup so she could post it on the school’s Facebook page — another way to let parents know about the service that will be at the campus on Thursdays, starting Oct. 29.
“It’s huge,” Rocha said of bringing services to families that have no transportation to get to a library and limited internet access.
She pointed to a block-long stretch of apartment buildings bordering the far side of the school’s grassy area and others across the street.
“See all these apartments — a lot of families are doubled up in one tiny room. The schools pass out hotspots but there are too many users. This is so needed.”
For more information and updates on WiFi on Wheels, go to ocpl.org.
