(upbeat music) - Utah Education Networks Wi-Fi improvement project is replacing outdated equipment at 55 libraries.

And here to tell you how this might benefit you, is UEN's Kelleigh Cole.

Hi Kelleigh.

Thanks for being here.

So this was a big project, but it is going to do a lot for library patrons.

Kind of talk about the benefits.

- Yeah, it really is.

Utah Education Network for a long time has worked on making sure that there's great fiber infrastructure to these libraries.

But then the libraries, you know, with budgets and things being able to fund that last piece, it's like having kind of a bad router in your house, if you've ever had your router go down in your house.

That's a similar situation to what's been happening.

And because we've been able to work with these libraries and do these updates, it really just impacts what can be done at a library.

And my vision for the libraries is that they, they've always been this community hub, especially in Utah.

If you look at the usage at Utah's libraries, it's significant.

About more than half of Utahns have an active library card and we're seeing just really strong usage in the libraries.

And now it's really exciting, 'cause this wifi project is helping them reach their potential, becoming these tech hubs in the community.

- Yeah.

- For example, during COVID, when I was at home, I realized, oh, I didn't have a printer in my office set up at home.

And so maybe I went to the library to print something in the library, but maybe I wanted to try 3D printing something, and maybe that's why I'm going to the library now.

And having robust Wi-Fi just makes these possibilities endless for Utahans.

- Wonderful, and I know you got a federal grant that enabled you to do this.

- We did.

We got a grant through the US Department of Treasury through the American Rescue Plan Act, which is ARPA for short.

And we were able to do some great network upgrades for our network to the schools and libraries.

But we were able to do significant upgrades to the libraries around Utah.

- Wonderful.

Well, it's a great service and I'm sure you patrons will appreciate it.

- Yes.

- So thank you, thank you.

And if you would like to know more about UEN and the Wi-Fi at Utah's public libraries, go to uen.org.

That's uen.org.

I'm Mary Dickson, thanks for watching Contact.

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