There’s a new Thor in town, but instead of lighting up the night sky like the Norse god of thunder, it’ll be lighting up communities in rural Colorado with fiber optic connectivity.

A group of local governments and private partners, led by Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG), recently completed the first phase of Project THOR, a middle mile fiber network that will enable better connectivity in the participating towns, cities, and counties. The network, owned by NWCCOG, provides backhaul to local governments looking to connect public facilities, schools, hospitals, and other community anchor institutions. It’s also available to Internet service providers (ISPs) to serve residents and businesses.

Project THOR brings much needed redundancy to the region’s broadband infrastructure, where previously a single fiber cut could take entire communities’ health and public safety services offline. It also promises great cost savings for localities and ISPs. Perhaps most importantly, the new network gives communities the necessary leverage to improve local connectivity beyond begging the incumbent providers for better broadband. Jon Stavney, executive director of NWCCOG explained on Community Broadband Bits episode 406:

This project allows these local governments to actually have a lever to pull to hopefully affect local service, however they can do that, with whatever partners come to the table . . . They’re able to actually act.

Building Toward a Network

NWCCOG, which is composed of member governments in and around Eagle, Grand, Jackson, Pitkin, and Summit Counties, coordinated broadband efforts in the region even before Project THOR began. A number of years ago, the council invested in a regional plan and hired a broadband coordinator, Nate Walowitz, to offer technical assistance to the member governments.

Last we checked in with Steamboat Springs they had just finished a connectivity project. Now the community is taking another step to improve local connectivity in this northwest Colorado ski resort town.

The goal is to connect large community anchor institutions throughout town with a fiber backbone which could become the basis for a larger network. Several community anchor institutions have pooled their resources and pledged $748,000 while also securing a matching grant to install 9 miles of fiber across the small town of 12,000. Funding is in place, but the agreement between the institutions must be finalized before sending out an official request for proposals to find a company to install the fiber.

Matching Grants & Community Connectivity

The Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) intends to match the community’s contributions towards the project. DOLA will provide $748,000 in grant money for the fiber backbone. According to Routt County Manager Tom Sullivan in Steamboat Today, the fiber design will have splice points to allow private providers to provide last-mile connectivity to residents’ homes and businesses from the fiber backbone.

So far, the large institutions pitching in for the 9 miles of fiber are: Routt County’s public safety complex, Yampa Valley Electric Association, the city of Steamboat Springs Mountain Fire Station, Yampa Valley Medical Center, Colorado Mountain College, and the Steamboat Springs School District. Several of these institutions had previously collaborated with the Northwest Colorado Broadband group and the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association on the community's first connectivity project.

The Carrier Neutral Location

On July 6th and 7th, much of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, lost phone and Internet when a fiber line was cut, creating a public safety hazard. In order to aviod future massive outages and improve connectivity, Steamboat Springs has decided to develop a Carrier Neutral Location or CNL, much like a similar initiative in nearby Cortez.

In July a CenturyLink fiber optic line was accidentally cut by construction crews, disrupting the 911 emergency system for about 3 hours. No calls were missed, but it is a terrifying reminder of how small towns are dependent on incumbent providers like CenturyLink for basic services.

The community, located in the northwest corner of the state and home to about 12,000 people, is known as a popular ski destination in the winter months. Locations like Steamboat Springs have a natural beauty in the rugged terrain, but incumbent providers tend to see a poor return-on-investment rather than beauty.

The July incident was not the first. In October 2011, an 8-hour outage caused a potential $1 million loss to the economy. If the outage had taken place during peak tourist season, the estimated cost would have been $1 million per hour. In order to ensure their public safety and ability to attract economic development, leaders in Steamboat Springs have decided to end the possibility of massive outage caused by a single cut by investing in a place where multiple carriers can connect.

A CNL is a space owned and maintained by a neutral party where broadband providers can connect to each other to provide redundancy. Sometimes referred to as "meet-me rooms," CNLs are especially useful for middle- and last-mile providers to connect. The facility drives down the cost of bandwidth for community anchor institutions and service providers because they do not require a separate facility for connections and fees are typically reasonable. The CNL in Steamboat Springs went online on June 1st, 2014.