Officials on Tuesday announced a new project using American Rescue Plan Act funds to increase Internet access in up to 10 Dallas County ZIP codes. Zayo, an infrastructure provider company, has been awarded about $27.8 million in federal funds to conduct the project.
“Broadband access can no longer be seen as a luxury,” Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said at a media event Tuesday. “In 2024, access to the Internet is a basic need like electricity, heat and water.”
Jenkins said Internet access gaps are most pronounced in South Dallas, where a majority of “target ZIP codes” are located. He said if southern Dallas County was its own city, “it would be one of the 10 least connected cities” in the country. About 24,000 households in Dallas currently lack home Internet access, according to information from a Zayo news release.
Zayo plans to build more than 60 miles of network infrastructure throughout Dallas County. This would make it more affordable for Internet service providers to connect households, Jenkins said, because they don’t have to lay their own cable.
Dallas County Commissioner Andrew Sommerman, whose precinct stretches north from central Dallas, said most residents in his district have Internet access, but there are some pockets without it. The project will help bridge the gap, he said.
“We need to have equality because, without equality to the Internet, we don’t have access to commerce, to education [and] to materials that are necessary to the everyday life in the modern world,” Sommerman said.
Zayo plans to complete construction by December 2026, spokesperson Kayla Bodel told The Dallas Morning News.
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