Pinal County will hold a ribbon cutting Thursday, Oct. 22, in San Tan Valley to mark the completion of its Final Mile Wireless Broadband Project, a county-built 5G internet network aimed at rural communities.
The ceremony is set for 2:30 p.m. at the J.O. Combs Unified School District office, 43371 N. Kenworthy Road, according to a notice from the Pinal County Board of Supervisors. A second ceremony for the same program is scheduled a day earlier, Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 2:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the Mammoth Public Library.
What the project is
The county has described the Final Mile project as a network of 32 radio towers spread across Pinal County to deliver 5G wireless internet to rural areas. It grew out of the pandemic, when remote learning exposed how unreliable internet access was in parts of the county, according to the county's announcement at the project's groundbreaking at Toltec Elementary School in Eloy.
The county built the system with the Pinal County School Superintendent's Office, placing towers on land owned by the county, school districts, Central Arizona College and the Town of Mammoth. The first tower went up at the Arizona City Library, and the county contracted with Doege Development for the rest.
The work is fully federally funded, mostly with American Rescue Plan Act money, plus four congressional earmarks backed by Sen. Mark Kelly and Reps. Juan Ciscomani and Greg Stanton, the county said. Ciscomani said at the time that the county was building on its existing federally funded fiber network and using its unused capacity.
Besides remote learning, the county has said the service could support telemedicine, government services, emergency management and local business.
