Back in June 2015, Santa Cruz announced a municipal fiber project with Cruzio, a local company that offers Internet access, colocation services, and a range of other data solutions. After finalizing details of the partnership, the city is officially moving forward with the plan. 

This past December, the Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously to begin the $45 million fiber network. Cruzio intends to complete the project in the next 3 years, bringing next-generation, high-speed Internet access to the home of the UCSC banana slugs.

International Excitement

With the network given the green light, the city was abuzz. The open access Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network will provide new opportunities for entrepreneurship throughout the city. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that the project is drawing interest from across the globe:

“Already, we haven’t even built the fiber network and people are already excited to work with us,” said Economic Development Director Bonnie Lipscomb, adding that a delegation from Beijing, China, visited Santa Cruz last week to discuss the project.

The Financial Plan

Through the partnership with Cruzio, the city will take out a financing bond that will be repaid by Cruzio’s customers on the network. Any funding gaps will be paid for 80% by Cruzio and 20% by the city. In the end, the city will own the infrastructure that Cruzio will manage. 

The decision to create the network has not been taken lightly. The Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce CEO Bill Tysseling, spoke to the years of consideration and deliberation before this decision:

“It feels good to [have it] be passed, we had this conversation several decades actually.”

As in the rest of the country, broadband is now a necessity for rural economic development in West Virginia. Taking on the challenge, Spruce Knob Seneca Rocks Telephone (SKSRT) cooperative overcame impressive obstacles to build a state-of-the-art fiber optic network. 

The cooperative operates in some of the most serene landscape in the United States and some of the most difficult terrain for fiber deployments. The region’s economy primarily relies on ski resorts and tourism from its namesake, Spruce Knob, the highest peak in the Allegheny Mountains. 

SKSRT’s service area also includes the National Radio Quiet Zone, which creates unique challenges for the cooperative. Established in 1958 by the FCC, the National Radio Quiet Zone protects the radio telescopes at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory from interference.  Because these telescopes are incredibly sensitive, the region is greatly restricted in deploying different types of telecommunication technologies. In certain areas of the quiet zone, closest to the observatory, wireless routers and two-way radios are prohibited. 

Because of the mountainous terrain and the technology restrictions, large telecoms had completely bypassed the sparsely populated communities, leaving them with few options for any sort of connectivity. Much of the isolated region still used the old ringdown operator-telephone system until 1972 when the community created SKSRT as a non-profit cooperative. SKSRT installed the latest in telephone infrastructure at the time and committed to encouraging economic development in the region.

Thirty years later, in 2008, the copper infrastructure that SKSRT had originally installed was in bad shape. The coop went to the Rural Utility Service to fund the needed copper improvements. RUS instead encouraged future-proof fiber. While other telecoms have integrated fiber slowly, General Manager Vickie Colaw explained in an interview with us that SKSRT took a different approach:

“It was evolving to a fiber world. That was when we decided to be total fiber-to-the-home.” 

The coop obtained a $7.7 million loan from the USDA and...

On October 2nd, a group of residents, business owners, and educators met with elected officials to celebrate the early success of LeverettNet. The municipal gigabit fiber network now serves 650 of 800 households in the Massachusetts town of 1,800.

This spring, the network began serving limited areas of town, offering telephone service and gigabit Internet access. LeverettNet's instant success is no surprise, considering a number townsfolk depended on unreliable, slow dial-up service over antiquated copper infrastructure for years. Some in town used DSL, satellite, and wireless devices; others had no Internet access at all. Telephone service was equally dismal - sometimes the community would lose service when it rained.

Leverett connects to MassBroadband 123, the statewide middle-mile network deployed by the Massachusetts Broadband Institute. Greenfield, Massachusetts Internet service provider Crocker Communications, is partnering with Leverett to offer gigabit service via the publicly owned infrastructure. 

The community chose to fund the network with a modest property tax increase and from revenue collected from subscribers. After they did the math, Leverett realized they could obtain better, faster, more reliable services for less if they built their own network. Take a few minutes to listen to Chris interview Peter d'Errico from Leverett's Broadband Committee and Select Board, in episode #113 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.

At the celebration, d'Errico described the way the community came together:

“The project has been huge for the town and mostly undertaken by our volunteer broadband committee, which met weekly for four years to make it happen,” said Peter d’Errico of the Leverett Broadband Committee. “With each phase taken a step at a time we have managed to complete something we all thought was a...

In a recent POTs and PANs post from the owner and president of CCG consulting, Doug Dawson helps to demystify the process cable installation experts use to run fiber optic cables through conduit.  The article walks us through the process, describing the techniques, equipment, and quality control processes involved in the installation of long and short fiber runs.

As the article notes, while installers can lay fiber optic cables without using conduit, carrier-class conduits often use conduit for two primary reasons: (1) to protect fiber optic cables and (2) to make the cables easily accessible for future needs. The post explains the three methods installers user to feed the cables through the conduit. One method, the simplest of all, involves pushing the cables through conduit; it is commonly used for home and office installations.  For longer routes, installers can potentially use either of more complex pulling and blowing methods. Dawson discusses the advantages and limitations of each method along with unique characteristics of short and long installations that dictate which method is the best for a given job.  

For example, the most basic pushing method is practical for short runs inside of offices and homes because it can’t overcome snags and bends in conduit the way the pulling method can. On the other hand, while the pulling method is the most viable method for long outdoor installations, it is also more likely to cause damage to the cables during the install process. While installers can use the blowing method for longer routes in some circumstances, it requires installers to use a lighter than normal set of fiber cables, specialized conduit with a low-friction lining, and more care avoid physical obstructions in the conduit.

Dawson writes:

Both pulling fiber and blowing fiber take specialized equipment and require following specific techniques to do it right to get the fiber through the conduit both quickly and safely. If you watch a fiber installation team and they are just sitting...