Fledging efforts to build a fiber network in Fort Bragg, California have seen some headwinds in the wake of the project’s original build partner being dismissed. The need to find a new vendor to help the city toward its goal has resulted in significantly higher costs and some notable delays, though city leaders say they’re still dedicated to guiding the project to completion.

The original plan to deploy affordable fiber broadband to the city of 7,000 was slated to cost somewhere around $14.7 million. When the city announced its plan to begin construction last year, that number jumped to $17.3 million. Recently issues have now increased the planned total cost for the project to $18.9 million.

Construction began last Spring, but it didn’t take long for the city to realize that the fiber deployment was going to exceed the city’s original projections.

“In July or June, it became obvious that the level of restoration in the streets was going to far exceed what we could afford,” City Economic Development Manager Sarah McCormick told the Fort Bragg City Council at a meeting back in January.

At the same time, the city's original build partner, construction management firm GHD, was dismissed by the city after it could not originally account for being over budget due to boring costs. GHD had been awarded a $1.4 million contract to oversee the project.

“We quickly terminated that part of the contract because that was his job — to track the project,” McCormick said.

Analysis later found that the higher costs were due to the late addition of telecom fiber flower pots – enclosures allowing for the core fiber trunk to be split off to serve individual locations and residences – something inexplicably omitted from the original design.

“When they made that change, they didn’t change the bill of materials for boring,” McCormick said. “That would have been like a real no-brainer thing to see if you were the construction manager and tracking the project.”

Navigating a New Path

By any measure, 2025 was a tough year in the grand project to extend fast, affordable, reliable broadband access to every home in the United States. The Digital Equity Act was abruptly cancelled, BEAD was restructured, small- and large-scale outages were common, and prices from the monopolies rose yet again.

But good things happened, too. In 2025, we saw seven new municipal broadband networks across the country that were lit up for service. As is usual, it was a mixture of partnerships, business models, and construction approaches to meet the unique challenges of a patchwork broadband landscape.

A Bountiful 2025 for Municipal Broadband

In California, the Gateway Cities Fiber Optic Network launched (eventually covering 23 cities); it will eventually cover 72 community anchor institutions and almost 5,000 unserved locations across member cities with the help of state grants.

Construction crews have begun work on Fort Bragg’s long-awaited municipal fiber network, which will ultimately bring affordable fiber to the California city of 7,000.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be $17 million. Of that, $10 million will be paid for by a Last Mile Federal Funding Account (FFA) grant from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), awarded in February to help fund the construction of a Middle Mile Broadband Network (MMBN) that will run directly through the heart of Ft. Bragg.

The remaining project costs will be paid for by a $7 million, 20-year loan at 4.85 percent from EverBank, recently approved by the Fort Bragg city council.

“This project is a cornerstone for the future of Fort Bragg,” City Manager Isaac Whippy said of the milestone. “Reliable, high-speed internet is no longer a luxury – it’s a necessity. With this investment, we’re closing the digital divide and making Fort Bragg a more connected, competitive, and inclusive community.”

According to a city announcement, Ft. Bragg’s citywide fiber network, 170 miles north of San Francisco, is being designed with a centralized data hub and 15 Distribution Areas (DAs). Using horizontal directional drilling, crews will install conduit and fiber underground – primarily beneath sidewalks and alleys – connecting to a fiber terminal located near the edge of the city’s right-of-way at each property.