Last Tuesday, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Commissioner Catherine Sandoval met with a group of 50 concerned local officials, Internet Service Providers, workforce training centers and private businesses to discuss northern California’s lack of broadband infrastructure.
The Broadband Roundtable was facilitated by CSU Chico Director of the Center for Economic Development Catherine Emerson. Sandoval and Emerson held the meeting in Redding.
“Attendees expressed considerable frustration regarding difficulty in expanding broadband due to cost, topography and low density,” said Joe Camicia, a Sacramento-area consultant who attended the meeting. “Attendees also have experienced difficulty in getting fiber optic or coaxial cable across federal lands and expressed interest in working closer with CalTrans to facilitate placement of conduit in the public right of way.”
There are more than 466,000 households without broadband or without adequate broadband, 29 percent of which are in California’s 16 northern counties, even though these counties account for only five percent of the entire state’s population.
"Northern California lacks broadband infrastructure [and has] no comprehensive physical backbone through which to deliver backhaul to last mile service providers," Emerson said.
Other barriers discussed in the meeting include a lack of bandwidth availability, high cost and lack of access to existing fiber optic and coaxial cable, particularly along the I-5.
By the end of the meeting, the two main action items were to identify barriers to access tower installation locations within national forests and to explore the possibility of opening access to a CalTrans conduit for cabling, according to Emerson.
