Imperial, Lassen, and Plumas Counties are among the first recipients of California’s $2 billion Last Mile Federal Funding Account Grant Program (FFA). The cities of Oakland, Fremont, and San Francisco have also been awarded significant state awards.

The FAA grants are part of California’s ambitious Broadband For All initiative, a $6 billion effort aimed at dramatically boosting broadband competition and access across the Golden State.

All told, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) awarded 11 FFA grants totaling over $86.6 million. Prominent awardees from this first round include publicly-owned broadband projects: the Golden State Connect Authority (GSCA) – a joint-powers broadband authority comprising 40 rural California counties – and Plumas Sierra Telecommunications for projects across Imperial, Lassen, and Plumas Counties.

“These projects will build community-based, future-proof, and equity-focused broadband infrastructure across California,” said CPUC President Alice Reynolds. “The Federal Funding Account – and these projects – are a shining example of our state’s Broadband For All values and objectives.”

Breckenridge was among the list of Colorado communities that voted to opt out of the state’s restrictive SB 152 back in 2016. Now, they’re ready to move forward with design and construction of an open access network. As the resort town prepares to begin work on their fiber infrastructure, several other communities will ask voters to opt out of SB 152 on November 6th.

To the Voters

As we reported in August, Aurora, Cañon City, the town of Florence, and Fremont County had already made plans to put the opt out question on their local ballots. Since then, we’ve discovered that that at least six other local governments want voters to address SB 152.

In Salida, where the town needed to fill a vacated office without delay, community leaders chose to hold their election in September and put the issue on the ballot. The measure to opt out passed with 85 percent of the vote.

Voters will also decide of their towns or counties should reclaim local telecommunications authority in the towns of Fountain and Erie along with Chaffee County and Kiowa County. Over the past several years, more than 120 local communities have asked voters to opt out of SB 152 and local referendums overwhelmingly passed. Many local communities have presented the issue to voters with no specific plans in mind, but do so in order to keep their options open and because they feel that Denver is less qualified than they are in making decisions related to local connectivity.

The Fremont Economic Development Corporation (FEDC) has reached out to voters, urging them to approve the measure with a "yes" vote. The fact that SB 152 still hangs like cloud over the region prevents them from obtaining grant funding to boost economic development.

Fremont Public Schools and the City of Fremont are joining forces to bring better connectivity to students and government. According to a Fremont Tribune article, work has already started on a fiber optic project that will increase bandwidth for both entities.

Fremont is a few miles northwest of Omaha and checks in with over 25,000 residents.

The schools will move from a 40 Mbps Internet connection to 10 Gbps. While each entity will own their own strands, they will share paths throughout the city. From the article:

“The benefits are going to be huge to the schools and the city,” [Heather] Tweedy, [media representative for Great Plains Communication] said.

The city and school district each will own their own strands, but will share paths throughout the city.

For example, the city would need to run a connection from the municipal building on Military Avenue to the power plant on the southeast side of Fremont, a path that also would go near Grant and Howard elementary schools.

The school district then would be responsible to get the fiber optics from the power plant to Fremont Middle School and Johnson Crossing Academic Center.

According to the article, Great Plains will do the install at a cost of $246,000 to the school and $149,000 to the city. We generally find that these types of arrangements result in tremendous cost savings for all entities involved.