Comcast announces $4.5M investment to bring high-speed broadband services to Planada

Comcast announced it is investing $4.5 million to bring high-speed broadband services to the rural community of Planada in eastern Merced County.

A groundbreaking event celebrating the investment was held Monday at Cesar Chavez Middle School with community advocates, elected leaders and eighth-graders in attendance.

Nathan Ahle, regional director of government affairs for Comcast, said the company will build out the Xfinity network over the coming weeks and months to cover the entire community — a welcome move after Planada was devastated by January floods.

“Comcast believes that we need to get the Internet to as many Californians as possible and we really want to make sure that everyone in all areas of the Central Valley have the opportunity to have fast, reliable high-speed internet,” Ahle said. “It’s not just about access, it’s about adoption and making sure that folks are able to experience everything the internet has to offer and that’s why we’re so excited to bring the 10G network here.”

Planada Elementary School District Superintendent Jose Gonzalez said the investment is going to be transformational not just for the community, but for the students, as well.

“The way the instructional model has pivoted and shifted, even before the pandemic, to have access to high-speed network is something that’s going to change the way they receive their instruction at Le Grand,” said Gonzalez.

Gonzalez said district programs such as drone coding, robotics, gaming, video and audio podcasting, were restricted to the confines of the district.

“Now they’ll be able to take those tools that they’re learning in our system, and apply them from home and who knows, we may have the next engineer from Comcast come from our community as a result of something like this today,” said Gonzalez.

“Given the amount of trauma this community has gone through it definitely is uplifting and it’s an investment that’s going to impact generations to come,” said Gonzalez.

According to Ahle, the $4.5 million undertaking involves extending the existing network in nearby Merced to the town of Planada. During the ceremony, the company announced a donation of $75,000 to the United Way of Merced County presenting a large cardboard check to Interim CEO Robert Hypes. According to Ahle, the donation is to help with continued flood relief and helping communities in the county recover from devastating storms earlier this year. The company also donated $25,000 to the San Joaquin Valley Broadband Consortium, presenting a large cardboard check to Eduardo Gonzalez, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Broadband Consortium. Ahle said the donation is intended to aid the consortium in helping people get connected to services and teach digital literacy.

“When Comcast comes to a community we don’t just want to bring our internet, we want to be a partner,” Ahle said. “We want to a part of the communities that we serve with our network and certainly we know the community of Planada has been through so much over the last few months with storms and that sort of things.”

In additions to the monetary donations, the company also gave free laptops to students in the graduating eighth-grade class to take with them as they transition to high school in Le Grand.

“It’s always fun to see the look on the kids faces when they get a surprise like that,” Ahle said.