Aguilar: How the RGV could be completely connected within five years

Rio Grande Guardian
BY STEVE TAYLOR 
NOVEMBER 25, 2023

A top consultant to TeamPharr.Net’s award-winning and blazing fast fiber-to-the-home broadband service says the Rio Grande Valley could be completely wired within the next five years. 

Guillermo Aguilar, of Brownstone Consultants, says he would like to see the big philanthropic institutions help the region. If they do, and the Valley secures sufficient funding through Proposition 8, his dream of seeing total connectivity could be realized. 

Aguilar made his views known after reading a news story in The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service about the work of Brownsville Community Foundation (BCF).

In the news story, BCF’s executive director, Diane Milliken Garza, said the nonprofit is working with a broadband company called Public Wireless to deliver WiFi into the homes of thousands of less affluent Valley residents, with funding coming through the federal Affordable Connectivity Program.

BCF, Milliken Garza said, would soon be morphing into the Rio Grande Valley Philanthropic Foundation in order to expand its services to communities across the region.

Writing in LinkedIn, Aguilar said he was proud of BCF’s efforts to improve broadband connectivity in the RGV.

“This is so inspiring to hear of another philanthropic organization that is seeking to (eliminate) the digital divide,” Aguilar wrote. “Methodist Healthcare Ministries and the Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation have been very active proponents and leaders in this much needed utility.”

Aguilar then explained what he would like to see happen next.

“It is my dream that the Ford Foundation and other large philanthropic organizations would see that these local non-profits are attaining much success throughout South Texas and would match their gifts. Together with Proposition 8 monies the RGV could be completely connected within five years.”

BCF’s plan is to provide a free internet device to those most in need. “It’s like a tablet, like an iPad. It runs on a SIM card like your phone or an iPad would run. The families get that plus they get four and a half years of free unlimited broadband,” BCF’s Milliken Garza explained.

However, Jordana Barton-Garcia, a senior fellow at Connect Humanity, said a free internet device is not enough. Barton-Garcia is co-organizer of the RGV Broadband Coalition.

“Broadband 101: The ‘devices’ are not magic. Invest in expanding the fiber optic infrastructure that actually serves the public interest, that makes ‘magic’ wireless possible and robust,” Barton-Garcia wrote, in response to Aguilar’s comments on the Guardian’s story about BCF.

“Invest in projects that follow best practices like Brownsville’s public-private partnership to expand fiber infrastructure for residents, small businesses, and anchor institutions, or Pharr’s fiber-to-the-home and premise with digital skills/digital navigator and device programs.”

Like Aguilar, Barton-Garcia praised Methodist Healthcare Ministries and Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation. She said they are “actually changing the narrative and addressing the systemic/root cause of the digital divide – underinvestment.”

Barton-Garcia said the underinvestment includes fiber optic infrastructure dedicated to serving low-income and underserved residents. She argued that such infrastructure needs to be affordable and have high-speed capacity. The underinvestment also includes internet devices and digital skills training, she said.

“That’s how we address the needs of residents, small businesses and anchor institutions (clinics, nonprofits, hospitals), and economic development,” Barton-Garcia wrote.

“Magic bandaids have never worked to actually break the cycle of poverty without getting to the root cause. Otherwise we’re just perpetuating the digital divide and inequality.”

Barton-Garcia added: “The sad part is you can spend lots of money on bandaids when you could have partnered to make systemic change. The stakes are too high for our communities.”