June 12, 2020

“Over the last few months, COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the lives of many citizens in our community. We were notified by the City of San Antonio (CoSA) that they are sincerely interested in our community’s ability to provide broadband access to underserved areas of our City.  While we understand that CoSA is having multiple conversations with a wide range of people, it was shared with us that part of the potential solutions could include private wireless networks for virtual educational purposes.  Also affecting our school systems during the current pandemic is the pre-existing challenges that relate to voids of digital inclusion across San Antonio. For years, CoSA as our owner has been allocated a moderate amount of our fiber assets for their general communication needs. No formal proposal to utilize an increased level of our fiber assets to address our community’s digital divide has materialized. Actually, we believe that telecommunications companies are best suited in many ways to support and potentially help lead such a broad opportunity.  They have the talent, technical resources, and expertise to help San Antonio optimize this effort.  This has been a consistent recommendation from CPS Energy.  We remain open to partnering with community leaders and interested telecommunications companies, as the local discussions progress.  In the interim, we at CPS Energy remain focused on doing our job of providing critical energy services to our customers and community.”