It took a while to determine exactly what happened in western Nevada County last weekend on Saturday evening when all communications, essentially, went down. All DSL, AT&T phone and cell service, and Verizon cell service disappeared just as many of us sat down for dinner and continued through early Sunday morning. With no phone service, that meant even dial-up Internet service was unavailable, as well as access to 911. Lucky those who had phone service with Comcast or DigitalPath, and yes even HughesNet or WildBlue Internet access.
So what did take place? Apparently a telephone pole (although technically they are PG&E poles in northern California) went down along Hwy 49 near Lime Kiln Rd and fell across the road. That pole most likely held a PG&E line plus an AT&T line of some sort. From our sources, an officer gave permission to cut the lines in order to clear the roadway for traffic. This was without understanding of what that AT&T line connected.
It is known that the only wired connectivity to the greater Internet and telephony network here is via AT&T and Comcast fiber optic cable. This is called backhaul. It is why no other provider can offer Internet service locally without an enormous cost for connectivity. It was assumed that the fiber optic cable that brings AT&T’s backhaul into western Nevada County was safely underground. It was also assumed that there would be a redundant fiber optic connection from another geographic direction for redundancy in case this very sort of loss of connectivity occurred.
Those assumptions were wrong on both fronts. We conferred with another rural provider and found out that, typically, AT&T brings one fiber optic cable into a rural area, which may have many strands of fiber optics contained within it. However, more often than not, for cost purposes, it is strung along the PG&E poles rather than buried alongside the highway. There is no redundant back up. In western Nevada County, it is also most likely the sole point of connectivity to the world beyond for cell phones. And it became clear, that Verizon uses AT&T’s backhaul here for their cellular service.
On that night for about eight hours, cash registers didn’t work, 911 wasn’t available, ATMs were down, and security cameras plus monitoring services were unable to transmit. And never mind watching movies on Netflix, using Skype, listening to music on Spotify, visiting with friends on Facebook, or online gaming that night. Imagine if it were a real emergency. Not only is broadband — now defined as 6 Mbps down / 1.5 Mbps up — scarcely available here, but we now know we are tethered to the world by only one strand.
Rural America and Nevada County deserves and requires much better than this.
Luckily, the future does look bright for alternate and reliable solutions. Especially in rural California, as a real revolution is happening across the country. In the next few months, we’ll be posting information on how “what’s next” will be coming much sooner than we could have imagined. Stay tuned and, hopefully, stay connected.
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