Fiber-optic cables carrying high-speed Internet may pass every house and business in the Inland Empire’s largest city by the end of 2024.
A company recently got the greenlight to build a 1,690-mile fiber system at a cost of $300 million, to be paid by the firm.
The company, SiFi Networks, is building similar systems in Fullerton, Placentia and Simi Valley, with plans to add Cathedral City and Oceanside to its Southern California portfolio, George Khalil, Riverside’s chief innovation officer, said.
The project is billed by Riverside officials as a way to spur economic development in a city that aspires to be a center of green technology industry and to close the so-called digital divide between wealthier neighborhoods, with their abundant Internet access, and lower-income areas that lack or have limited access.
Just 39 percent of Riverside homes are served by high-speed fiber now, Khalil said.
That would change under the plan the Riverside City Council approved Tuesday, May 17, in a 6-1 vote, with Councilmember Gaby Plascencia voting no. Khalil said the SiFi project would create an extensive backbone system that serves the entire city, offering connections to all 106,000 parcels.
“It will be unprecedented in the access that people will have,” Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said in an interview.
City Councilmember Chuck Conder said at the meeting that the network will “touch every property in the city. Social status doesn’t matter.”
Conder said he looked forward to the project.
“This is the future,” he said, according to the meeting videotape.
The network will be capable of delivering Internet service as fast as 10 gigabits to homes and 100 gigabits to businesses — significantly faster than the highest widely available speeds in the city now, Khalil said.
“Residents would have the choice, if they wish, to participate on that new infrastructure, or to maintain the current services that they have right now if they’re happy with that,” Khalil said during the council meeting.
SiFi is a wholesaler that would own and operate the network after building it, and sell access to the lines to Internet service providers, a city report states. In turn, those providers would use the lines to deliver Internet service to households and other customers.
High-speed connections can promote economic development, city officials said, because companies such as financial institutions and health-care companies maintain large databases and need to move large amounts of information fast.
The council’s approval of a development agreement gives SiFi access to city roads to construct the system. The installation process involves drilling 2-inch-wide, 12-inch-deep holes in streets in front of homes, near curbs and sidewalks, Khalil said.
“It’s at the edge of the gutter, right where the pavement and the gutter meets,” he said.
Because holes will be small, Khalil said, damage to streets should be minimal. Still, the agreement calls for depositing $2 million in an escrow account to fix potential damage, he said.
The construction process should cause minimal delays for residents because it will move at a swift pace, about 2,500 feet per day, he said.
Khalil said city officials watched crews install fiber cables in Placentia.
“They’re in and out,” he said, saying they stay in one place for about 15 minutes.
SiFi President Scott Bradshaw told councilmembers the company will endeavor to hire 100 workers from the Riverside area to help a seasoned crew build the system, but stopped short of committing to that number, in response to a question from Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes.
“We have so much talent here,” Cervantes said. “And I would hate to see any of those folks be looked over for an opportunity like this.”
Khalil said SiFi plans to subsidize service costs for 12 percent of homes, giving low-income families a break on Internet fees. Those subsidies would be worth collectively $133 million during the program’s first 30 years, according to a news release.
The deal gives SiFi the opportunity to operate the network for 90 years, with an initial 30-year term and options for two 30-year extensions.
As for the system, the agreement calls for it to be 95 percent complete within four years. Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2023 and wrap up in late 2024, Khalil said.
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