Fwd: California Public Utilities Commission approves $5M grant for fiber network

[Tyler Booth]

Saw this on MuniWireless. While it has nothing to do with wireless, this is an inspiring story of an underserved community taking matters into their own hands and building an open provider fiber network operated by a cooperative (I have a hard time feeling sorry for this particular demographic's current lack of high speed internet options, but that's a different story)

Begin forwarded message:

Date: November 24, 2009 12:15:31 PM PST

Subject: California Public Utilities Commission approves $5M grant for fiber network

Source: MuniWireless

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved a $5 million grant from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to the Central Coast Broadband Consortium (CCBC).  The grant pays for 10% of the cost of a $50 million fiber optic trunk line network planned for Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties on California’s central coast (for more details, click here).

According to Steve Blum of Tellus Venture Associates, the  project will build “a 428-mile fiber optic backbone linking unserved and underserved areas to better served communities, and connecting the entire region to Tier 1 Internet facilities in Silicon Valley. Using a loop architecture, any point on the network would have two independent paths to any other point, and to the Internet. Current plans are for the system to be operated by a cooperative, which will offer access on a wholesale basis to last-mile Internet service providers and major institutional customers.”

Read more…

[Gary]

They did something like this in Ashland years ago... the local
businesses all agreed to collect a "luxury" tax on prepared foods, and
some other things I can't remember the details of.

Did any other homeowners in SE get letters from Qwest asking to buy a
10x10' easement? Presumably it's to build out their "fiber to the 'hood"
offerings.

-Gary

[Michael]

Gary wrote:
> Did any other homeowners in SE get letters from Qwest asking to buy a
> 10x10' easement? Presumably it's to build out their "fiber to the 'hood"
> offerings.

No!  When did it come out? 
I have a double lot...


--
Michael Rasmussen
http://www.jamhome.us/
Be Appropriate && Follow Your Curiosity

[Gary]

Michael wrote:
> No! When did it come out?
> I have a double lot...

Some time last week or the week before... We're not far from the CO on
71st just south of Foster. Maybe they're only building out from one CO
at a time...?

-Gary