On December 5, the City held a ribbon cutting event at the Sullivan Center to celebrate the launch of a new private LTE network that will enable Tukwila School District students without home internet to access web-based learning from home using pre-provisioned Chromebooks.

The new private LTE network was funded by a $1.4 million grant that the City of Tukwila’s Technology & Innovation Services division received from the Washington State Department of Commerce and was administered through the Washington State Broadband Office. The project will provide free internet access to support the educational enrichment of up to 1,200 students in the Tukwila School District.

Federated Wireless, a provider of shared spectrum connectivity, is supplying the underlying technology and infrastructure and will manage the network for three years. Based on a previous heat map study of student internet needs, small cellular sites were deployed at schools, public housing, and city facilities across the Allentown, Tukwila Hill, Tukwila International Boulevard, and Cascade View neighborhoods.

Students were then provided with Chromebooks capable of connecting to school resources via the private LTE network. The network was designed to ensure student safety and to protect the throughput of the network by controlling use at the endpoint, accomplished by pre-provisioning each Chromebook with a SIM card.

The project required that the City collaborate with numerous teams, including King County IT, Impact Charter Schools, Bellwether Housing, Tukwila School District, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, WSBO, and Federated Wireless, all working together under a short timeline. We appreciate the help from all of these groups in bringing this project to fruition this year!