Bright Fiber: High Speed Internet in the Mountains

SBC recently accompanied a team of community leaders from Nevada County on a visit to the California Public Utilities Commission in San Francisco to discuss an exciting local broadband project.

The project, known as the Bright Fiber Network, would install direct, to the door, 1 gigabit Internet and data speed via fiber optics to more than 3000 customers in a 26 square mile area of western Nevada County.

That’s right, 1 full gigabit! To put that in perspective, it’s likely around 100-400 times faster than anything you have ever used if you live in the Sierra Nevada. You don’t have to be a geek (and we use the term affably) to understand what that means. This project would put western Nevada County on par with the few urban areas in the country with access to 1 gigabit per second service.

There are so many reasons this project is critical for western Nevada County. Speed drives economic development, creates redundancy in the local system to avoid broadband blackouts, supports the ability of local schools to participate in distance learning and testing, and boosts emergency service capabilities. Of particular importance to today’s Sierra Nevada, broadband speed creates critical infrastructure for attracting new business and retaining existing ones.

This project would be proof that we can get high speed service in our areas in a cost effective manner and that we are correct in believing that more can be done to initiate broadband access equally throughout the state. Unfortunately the Bright Fiber project is caught up in a bureaucracat glitch and stalled, which motivated nine people from western Nevada County to make the trek to San Francisco and say, “Hey, we matter up here and we are ready to go!”

The importance of broadband speed and connectivity is imperative in cultivating innovation in the Sierra. If you’re interested in effective and collaborative action, join us at SBC’s 20th Anniversary Conference, “Peak Innovation: The Next 20 Years” to foster the change you want to see in the Sierra. Together we can make this region an even better place to live and, particularly with availability of high-speed Internet, work. Space is limited, click here to reserve your seat at the table.