Comcast makes splash in SW Fresno, improving internet access with new community digital hub - The San Joaquin Valley Sun

Comcast officials rolled retired the reddish carpet to boost net connections for families surviving successful 1 of Fresno’s astir overlooked neighborhoods, rolling retired a caller six-figure inaugural to amended integer entree and make a caller assemblage net hub astatine Saint Rest Baptist Church.

A rally astatine the religion connected Thursday saw hundreds of students from Fresno Unified’s Columbia Elementary and Gaston Middle schools cheer connected the announcement of a caller “Lift Zone.”

The Lift Zone provides escaped WiFi entree to link assemblage members to the internet, opening the doorway to acquisition opportunities and integer economical venues.

Thus far, Comcast’s Fresno-based Government Affairs main Nathan Ahle reported, the inferior has built 16 akin WiFi hubs with much than 150 crossed the Golden State.

Earlier successful 2022, Comcast spent $1 cardinal to grow its web connectivity to Biola and opened a akin Lift Zone astatine the Biola Community Services District.

Saint Rest Pastor, Rev. DJ Criner, Fresno Unified Superintendent Bob Nelson, Fresno City Councilman Miguel Arias, and Fresno Deputy Mayor Matt Grundy took turns cheering connected the inaugural for southwest Fresno residents.

“Comcast has allowed residents that, implicit the people of years person felt similar they don’t matter, to consciousness that they and their lives, their job, and acquisition is conscionable arsenic applicable arsenic immoderate different broadside of town,” Criner said successful remarks.

“In Fresno, the gaps, the disparities beryllium and they person existed, truthful we are looking for each accidental we tin to assistance adjacent the divide. Fresno is simply a peculiar spot with peculiar families and peculiar children,” said Broderick Johnson, Comcast’s enforcement vice president for equity and nationalist policy.

Ahle and Johnson didn’t permission the assembled kids bare handed. They had a peculiar announcement for the assembled hundreds of southwest Fresno schoolhouse children.

Each would beryllium heading location with a laptop of their own, courtesy of the telecomm provider.

The cheers, it should beryllium noted, rivaled a taping of a vintage Oprah episode.