CPUC approves Santa Cruz broadband priorities developed in Civinomics workshop

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by Steve Blum
Tellus Venture Associates

Twelve central coast communities, including three in Santa Cruz County, have been designated as priority areas for broadband infrastructure development by the California Public Utilities Commission. In a unanimous vote on Thursday, commissioners endorsed the list presented in March by the Central Coast Broadband Consortium, following a month-long workshop on Civinomics.com.

The Pleasure Point/Twin Lakes neighborhood down coast from the City of Santa Cruz, the Brookdale area in the mountains and the town of Soquel made the list, along with Aromas, two rural areas outside of Hollister and six Salinas Valley communities: Castroville, Chualar, Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and King City.

The Civinomics workshop focused on developing a quantitative ranking system. In the end, the primary criteria used were social and economic impact, project feasibility and, crucially, availability of broadband service. The more homes that don’t have access to service that meets the CPUC’s minimum standard of 6 Mbps download/1.5 Mbps upload speed, the greater the likelihood that grants and loans to build modern infrastructure will be available from the California Advanced Services Fund.

And that’s the other half of what commissioners approved on Thursday. A new round of CASF project proposals will begin in December. Existing broadband providers – Comcast, Charter and AT&T, in particular – were put on notice. Either they make a commitment to the commission that they’ll upgrade the substandard service in those communities or face subsidised competition from ISPs who will.

Being on the list doesn’t guarantee funding (nor does not being on the list preclude it). But the CPUC has already invested $11 million in building a fiber optic backbone from Santa Cruz to Soledad, and would like nothing better than to see it used to deliver gigabit-class service to homes and businesses here.

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Sara Isenberg publishes Santa Cruz Tech Beat for the benefit of the extended business and technology community. When she is not volunteering her time for the tech scene, Sara makes her living by managing software projects, web strategy planning, and providing development team services (including account management, vendor management, strategic partner management, beta project management, referrals to qualified technical team members, and more). Please visit her website: Sara Isenberg Web Consulting & Project Management, or contact Sara by email if you have any project management, account management, or Development Team leadership or service needs.

Tagged Broadband, Civinomics, Steve Blum