Stakeholders Celebrate Broadband Milestone in Sacramento

NATOMAS — The high-speed Internet connections that so many Californians enjoy often begin in a muddy hole along a busy roadway. Like many of the other critical utility services we take for granted, running fiber-optic cable requires precision, hard work, and next-level public-private coordination.

And though very few of us ever question where our signals come from, how they get to our glowing screen, or whether everyone else has the same access, a contingent of public and industry officials are very focused on these questions.

The state’s ranking technology leaders gathered with other agency heads and stakeholders during a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday in Natomas to give an up-close glimpse at a small portion of the ambitious Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative (MMBI) project.

State Chief Information Officer Liana Bailey-Crimmins told Industry Insider — California that the work to build out the 8,000 miles of middle-mile fiber backbone is nothing short of “monumental,” adding that it has been an exercise in collaboration between public agencies and private partners alike.

“Every 2,500 feet along this 8,000 miles, someone can connect and provide that vital Internet to households that are very important to all of us,” she told attendees in her remarks.
When all is said and done, the infrastructure will play host to providers of all sizes in areas that have traditionally had few choices when it comes to high-speed Internet service.

“Having a backbone like this allows other small providers to jump onto our network and provide services in areas they would not have been able to do, which creates competition and hopefully reduces costs,” said Bailey-Crimmins, who’s also the director of the California Department of Technology.

“We know California is continuing to grow, and we see this as an asset that we’ll continue to invest in for lifetimes to come. So we’re just excited that we get to be a part of something so monumental,” she added.

The stretch of cable on display in Natomas marks the start of a 256-mile portion between San Jose and Carson City, Nev., that Bailey-Crimmins expects to have operational by summer 2025 and completed by 2026. The work is being done by Arcadian Infracom, which is also responsible for roughly 1,000 total miles of the larger MMBI project.
“Arcadian builds the big super highway through San Jose to Reno. We’re building them through areas that have not been built before,” Arcadian CEO Dan Davis told Industry Insider — California.

Davis said that what’s going in the ground now will have the capacity to support new connections for decades to come. He added that without fiber backbones like this, the billion-dollar data centers at each end of the project would be little more than warehouses for expensive servers.

“Typically, we’ll put in 10 to 12 conduits or pathways, each of which can have, at least right now, 864 fibers. Each pair of fibers has about 20 to 30 terabits,” he said. “I will tell you, 864 fibers, the first cable we put in, is a bigger cable than anything in existing long haul. And then we can go nine times that over the next 40 or 60 years,” he said.
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), known more for its collection of roads and bridges, is also playing a critical role in connecting residents to the Internet. State rights-of-way are being used to streamline installations in step with other infrastructure projects in what officials call a “dig-smart” approach.

Caltrans’ Deputy Director of Project Delivery and Chief Engineer Donna Berry told attendees the department is playing multiple roles in the MMBI project. In addition to its oversight and permitting functions, Caltrans has also performed the design work and construction contracting for some 800 miles of the network, she said.

“Additionally, dig-smart policies allow multiple Internet service providers to utilize the same installation opportunities during the state-funded infrastructure projects that are already on the books, already moving forward, and allow us those extra opportunities to get the fiber in the ground quicker today,” Berry said.