To help bridge the digital divide, especially during remote instruction, schools and communities have set up hotspots and other platforms to help connect students and families to the internet. Ector County has used those strategies too, Wilks says, but the shared signal often degraded depending on how many people were using the hotspot, and the speeds were insufficient. Now, through a relationship with Starlink, the satellite internet service developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, local families have access to high-speed, low-latency internet for students. Wi-Fi has been an effective solution to connect rural students and families to the internet, says Pratt.
