Last September, Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity counties embarked on a regional broadband project The project is being managed by HSU and is funded by a variety of sources, including the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), Humboldt Area Foundation, McLean Foundation, RREDC, and the Headwaters Fund. This month the team has briefed the Board of Supervisors in all four counties.
The project’s goal is broadband demand aggregation for our four county rural region including the counties of Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity. The intent is to begin to understand and build a robust broadband market by increasing the supply of services (especially to underserved areas and constituencies) while, at the same time, growing business and home consumer demand in the region.
There are 17 broadband providers in the Redwood Region, and they include telephone companies, cable companies, wireless Internet service providers (WISPs), and ISPs who resell DSL or wireless services. A summary of counties and their broadband providers is as follows:
DEL NORTE
Charter Communications
HUMBOLDT
101Netlink
AT&T
Almega
Cascadia Wireless
Frontier
Suddenlink
Velocity Technology
Wave Broadband
MENDOCINO
101Netlink
AT&T
Black Mountain Communications
Central Valley Cable
Comcast
Esplanade
Pacific Internet
WillitsOnline
TRINITY
DCA Cablelink
TDS Happy Valley
Velocity Technology
Seven community meetings were attended by 265 residents this past winter in Crescent City, Weaverville, Ft Bragg, Ukiah, Willow Creek, Redway, and Eureka. Ft Bragg attendance was a whopping 90 people, showing unmet demand on the Mendocino Coast. About half of the broadband providers attended the meetings.
A survey was developed and administered in several ways. The telephone survey was by random dialing and can be generalized to the overall population. There was a separate survey targeted at businesses. Surveys done online and at meetings or mailed in were called “targeted surveys” or “self-selecting surveys” and are a measure of demand, but can’t be generalized to the overall population. The surveys were intended to increase awareness of broadband, ask about current means of accessing the Internet, measure demand, and to determine willingness to pay for broadband service.
The data collected is too extensive to be discussed here, so I’ll just share a few items. The phone survey shows that 90% of the region has a landline and a personal computer. 63% of residents also consider Internet access at home to be either of critical importance or very important. More than 70% of businesses rated broadband critical or very important. Both the community meeting and telephone surveys indicate that 30%+ use dial-up to access the Internet. As we all know, dial-up is problematic for accessing most Web sites, for transferring any files, or for doing business. We’ve got to get better broadband coverage so the 30%+ can come into the 21st century.
Working on the supply part of the equation, mapping of the four county region has been done. This has taken a large portion of the project time. The original plan had been to use the California Broadband Task Force (CBTF) maps for Redwood Coast Connect, which were released midway into the project. Based on local knowledge, we determined the maps to be inaccurate for the Redwood Coast, overstating coverage in some areas and missing coverage in other areas. The decision was made to gather our own mapping data. This turned out to be a larger challenge than expected, since very little data was already in GIS (Geographic Information System) format. I had to call every provider and ask for data. This data came in every format imaginable – GIS, AAA map marked with highlighter, engineering drawings, GPS topo software marked up, maps on provider Web sites, purchased information, viewshed modeling in GIS where wireless tower latitude/longitude was know, and talking to linemen and cable guys.
It’s no surprise to residents in these Humboldt towns that there’s no broadband available: Briceland, Bridgeville, Crannell, Ft Seward, Holmes, Korbel, Myers Flat, Orick, Orleans, Phillipsville, Redcrest, Richardson Grove, Weott. Other towns are partially served: Bayside, Carlotta, Hydesville, Fieldbrook, Kneeland, Willow Creek.
Right now we’re in the middle of analysis of the supply and demand data. We’ll be proposing alternatives that are most likely for each of the unserved towns.
Some of the surprises thus far in the project are:
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Huge gains in broadband coverage, primarily due to WISPs (fixed wireless) and mobile/cellular broadband. Humboldt County’s coverage looks far better than it did just 18 months ago.
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Good coverage by smaller phone companies (Frontier and TDS Happy Valley).
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Openness of sharing information by some providers and conversely, extreme reluctance by others.
The project has confirmed what we already knew:
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Infrastructure is deteriorating in some areas.
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Backhaul (or “middle mile” to the Internet) cost and availability is a huge barrier to ubiquitous broadband in our region. Backhaul cost and availability is also a barrier to providing better speed in some of the areas served by lower-speed broadband.
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We need alternative fiber coming into the county to provide greater reliability.
It will take many different options to bring broadband to all of us on the North Coast. Stay tuned for the final report in late summer. Results will be presented at the Fourth Annual Broadband Forum on August 21
RTC is a good place to network with others who are interested in technology and telecommunications. Meetings are free and open to the public.
Tina Nerat is a Workforce Investment Board member and is a member of the Redwood Technology Consortium. She and her husband, Mike Nerat, own NERATECH a technology consulting business.
Copyright 2008, the Eureka Times Standard Newspaper. The print version of this article first appeared in the 6/26/08 version of the Times Standard.