An interesting write-up on the Gold Country broadband consortium, including concerns about the process and potential confusion about a recent workshop, is here.
It asks justifiably “Will the Gold Country broadband consortium deliver?”
Let’s hope this is a collaborative effort, not a consortium of one.
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Let’s have another study about the study we last studied. In the meantime, I’m in my 6th year on very expensive and very limited satellite. Before that it was dial-up. The AT&T fiber is strung along Greenhorn and remains dark in my neighborhood after 1.5 years. Maybe we need to study that, too. Let’s all run another speed test!
Good point. All hat, no cattle. Don’t want to start a “culture war,” but it’s a theme in our neck of the woods. Cheers.
First I should say that the organization I work for wrote a letter of support for the grant for the consortia covering Nevada County, and if we had the staff capacity and expertise would probably be sitting on the group or acting as a co-sponsor. Unfortunately we don’t have the capacity now, but may in the future.
Second, it is a fact that qualifying for the larger amounts of money that will be necessary to actually install cable does require significant planning, analysis, expertise, and eventually environmental assessment. In addition, just doing the work necessary to qualify for CPUC or other funding is a considerable and expensive challenge.
To take a look at the eventual outcome of a project like this, and the level of assessment, reporting and investment necessary, it might be helpful to look at the progress of the Digital 395 Project being deployed on the east side of the Sierra Nevada right now.
http://www.digital395.com/index.html
So let me preface my final comments by applauding SEDCorps for taking this up, and wishing them ultimate success. A successful project will improve all of our residents and businesses quality of life and lead to considerable economic opportunity.
What I do find fascinating is that this project is being served by Russ Steele as a consultant. (I am not sure if that is a paid or voluntary position) Now this is an area where Russ has a considerable amount of experience, so I do not question his qualifications. But it must also be noted that this project is partially funded by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding (the Obama stimulus package) that Russ has been almost viscously critical of on his blog. Further, it is partly funded by a surcharge on private ratepayers bills ordered by the California legislature (a practice Russ has also been roundly critical of for other purposes over on his blog, saying they are an un-constitutional and unwarranted tax). As a matter of fact Russ has identified such practices as socialism. I guess hypocrisy really does know no bounds.
Thanks for the information, Steve. I wish SEDCorp success too. So what will it really take to make anything happen? To most residents of the area, this will make a bigger economic difference than a gold mine or a mega-resort, that’s for sure.
I was only half-joking about taking another speed test. For now, that seems to be all that we potential end users are able to do to move anything forward and it is very frustrating. If this were electrification and not modern communication, we’d all still be using candles and Kerosene lamps.
ATT– DSL gets slower as it goes up hill, until it finally gets to my house, delivered by turtle. Unless it rains.
Since I am on the downhill side, mine must be faster than yours. Wanna study it?
I’d be happy to, tell me what you’d like to do. By their own test online(ATT Test) my download speed is 2.46 mbps and my upload is 0.42 mbps.