LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Lincoln Public Schools has announced it will pay $80,000 to provide some 1,000 Wi-Fi hotspots for students without internet access at home who are now having to learn remotely - and mostly online - as classrooms have closed to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The district is paying AT&T Mobility Holdings for the two months of data through the phones provided by the company at no cost, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. The phones will provide up to 100 gigabytes of data a month to allow students to access Google Classroom through their school-provided laptops, LPS chief technology officer Kirk Langer said.
The devices will be hooked up directly to laptops and won't work on other devices or access any content not provided by the district.
The district will pay $80,000 to AT&T Mobility Holdings for two months of data through phones provided by the company at no cost, said Kirk Langer, LPS chief technology officer.
The phones will provide up to 100 gigabytes of data a month to allow students to access Google Classroom through their Chromebooks. The devices will be hooked up directly to the Chromebooks and won't work on other devices or to access any content but that provided by LPS.
Langer said AT&T representatives reached out to the district and offered what other companies had not: the free phones and the ability to use the data without a contract.
"We can discontinue at any time," he said.