We’re deep in the midst of the Spiral gigabit project network design in Service Area A; all in preparation for permitting and then construction. We have also been actively working to make sure that people and state legislators know how desperately our rural areas need faster reliable internet access.
In Sacramento, AB1665 is the bill that will continue funding the California Advanced Services Fund, the source of Spiral’s $16.2M grant. Last year, the telco and cable lobbyists stopped a similar bill dead in its tracks. This year, they are outright lying to the legislators; making sure money doesn’t go to smaller providers that have more incentive to build fiber optic network in communities. We have been actively lobbying with the facts, hoping to result in legislation that will enable internet for all.
Michael Anderson, Spiral’s CIO, was recently interviewed by Christopher Mitchell of MuniNetworks.org in Minnesota. Listen to the podcast. He provides an excellent overview of the problems we are facing in California.
John Paul, Spiral’s CEO, was also recently interviewed for an article on rural broadband and agriculture that appears in the September issue of Comstock’s magazine. You’ll want to read The Long Reach: As smart technology grows more essential to modern ag, farmers languish in dead zones.
As a web-teaser for the article, he was asked to answer a few question about changes in the internet industry in rural California. His apparently controversial (although accurate) answers prompted the Comstock’s editor to request a statement from AT&T. Read Back and Forward: John Paul on the Future of Rural-Access Internet to see AT&T’s regional spokesman’s confusing non-response. Sigh. The telco and cable companies continue to spread misinformation in order to maintain their aging monopolies.
First it was last year. That morphed and metastasized into “late summer 2017” and here we are in fall2017 and notta, zip, zilch? They have planned lunar landings in less time. Perhaps lobbying alternative options is better than trusting folks with grant money and no business sense of urgency.
Sean McGomes
Hi Sean. Please read our current post. John